


Plan B or C or Whatever

by jennytork



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Brigadoon, Gen, SPN Cinema Challenge (Supernatural & Supernatural RPF), SPN Season 4, Spn Season 5, The Russians Are Coming, spn season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennytork/pseuds/jennytork
Summary: Take one miscast spell in 1814. Add one Russian sub in 1966 and two young hunters in 2006. Result: chaos--and very possibly one thwarted Apocalypse.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. THEN

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written with San Antonio Rose. 
> 
> This one is all Rosie's fault. :D She came up with this idea and we ran with it together. This one was a blast to write, though I had to go back and watch one movie she based this on (The Russians Are Coming!) because I hadn't ever seen it. This story was so much fun, taking the events of two movies (Brigadoon being the other) and SPN and fusing them into one epic story

THEN

Gloucester Island, Massachusetts

Dawn, August 27, 1814

“A’n’t no chance of gettin’ the women an’ children ashore,” Luther Grilk reported, wiping his brow as he joined the other town fathers in the back room of the tavern as wind from the oncoming hurricane whistled past from the southwest. “Sea’s already too rough, an’ by the time I could get ol’ Beatrice an’ get to the far side o’ the island to call the folks out there, the storm’ll be here.”

“Then _what,_ pray, do you suggest we do?” asked Norman Jones, one of the town’s few constables.

“How the devil should I know?” Grilk shot back. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Fancy-pants Whittaker over here?”

“Fancy-pants?” Walter Whittaker protested. “I take umbrage at that comment, sirrah!”

Rev. Hawthorne stepped between them, hands raised. “Gentlemen, PLEASE! This is no time for us to be fighting amongst ourselves!”

“It’s time for action,” Whittaker said. “And I am undertaking such.”

The other men grumbled, but Rev. Hawthorne understood. Whittaker was here posing as a writer of comic operas, but in fact, he was a Man of Letters who’d come to study the island. “What do you need, Mr. Whittaker?”

Whittaker rattled off a list of ingredients and said, “Quickly.”

“What good is that going to do?” squawked Fendall Hawkins, the island’s most senior veteran of the Revolutionary War.

Rev. Hawthorne interrupted, “We haven’t time to argue, Col. Hawkins. Mr. Maxwell, you and Mr. Jones fetch us the herbs; I should have the rest at the church.”

“Gather at the church,” Whittaker ordered.

Hawkins tried to protest again, but with Rev. Hawthorne taking Whittaker’s side, the others decided to obey. Maxwell and Jones ran off to get the herbs, and Whittaker and Rev. Hawthorne dashed to the church and began setting up. Muttering in Yiddish, Whittaker chalked a sigil on the floor while Rev. Hawthorne collected a silver bowl and several candles.

“Really ought to be doing this outside,” Whittaker murmured as he finished the sigil. “Draw the sigil on the actual rock, you know?”

“Well, I don’t precisely,” Rev. Hawthorne replied, “but this is holy ground, and I trust the good Lord will convey the protection of His own house to the rest of the island.” 

Whittaker grumbled something that sounded like “your God, not mine” and started setting up the candles. “You have a flint or something?”

“Yes, here.” Rev. Hawthorne handed over his tinderbox just as Maxwell and Jones arrived with the herbs. Many of the other townspeople crowded in behind them, but Jones and the island’s chief magistrate, Linfield Mattocks, stopped them from pressing in too close. There was some muttering about witchcraft, but most people were too afraid of the oncoming hurricane to care.

Whittaker nodded his thanks to his helpers, lit the candles, mixed the concoction, said words in a strange tongue, cut his palm, and bled into the bowl. The wind started to howl as if enraged, and Whittaker lit the charcloth tinder with the flint and steel and dropped the burning tinder into the bowl, shouting the last words of the incantation.

Flames shot up out of the bowl... and the wind stopped.

All around, sighs of relief went up.

“I’ll run up to make sure we’re in the clear,” Maxwell volunteered and walked over to the stairs that led up to the belfry.

“Be careful,” Whittaker warned.

Rev. Hawthorne offered Whittaker his own handkerchief to bind his hand. “Are you all right, Mr. Whittaker?”

“Tired,” Whittaker admitted, sitting back and wrapping his hand in the handkerchief. “Takes a lot out of a person. But if it worked, it’s all worth it.”

The church grew quiet for a moment... and suddenly shook as a wall of wind slammed into its north side and the temperature plummeted.

“BLIZZARD!” Maxwell yelped, all but falling back down the stairs.

“WHAT?” Rev. Hawthorne gasped. “Whittaker, what did you DO?”

Whittaker gulped. “Nothing that would cause a blizzard at the end of August!” But there was no mistaking the rattle of sleet against the windows or the fact that everyone’s breath was visible.

“Do it again!” Hawkins ordered from further back. “Get us out of this!”

Wild-eyed, Whittaker leapt to his feet. “Are you mad?! I can’t do it again this quickly! I need at least a week—”

“We wait a week, we’ll freeze to death!”

“If I try it now, it could backfire or kill me! We could be trapped in a—”

“Confound it, man, just DO IT!”

Jones spun and waved a pistol in Whittaker’s face. “Do it now, Whittaker, or so help me....”

Whittaker whimpered, knelt, dumped the contents of the bowl outside the sigil, and performed the ritual again, although he had to light the charcloth from one of the candles because his hands were shaking too badly from the cold to work the flint and steel.

The herb mixture flared again. The wind died down. The temperature rose. And Whittaker collapsed backward with a groan.

Jones sighed and lowered the pistol.

Rev. Hawthorne knelt to shake Whittaker’s shoulder. When that didn’t rouse him, Rev. Hawthorne felt for pulse and breath. “He’s barely breathing,” he gasped.

“What—what do we do?” Maxwell asked, shaken.

“Norman, Jeremy, carry him back to his room at the inn,” Mattocks ordered. “Luther, Fendall, you sail over to the mainland, fetch a doctor.”

The assigned men leapt to their tasks—then froze just outside the door. Despite the snow on the ground, the sky was clear, and the sun was rising over a sea that was as still as glass.

“It... it feels odd....” Grilk breathed.

“Get movin’,” Mattocks growled.

The men got moving, and Rev. Hawthorne followed Maxwell and Jones as they carried Whittaker up to his room and laid him gently on his bed. Jones went downstairs then, but Maxwell and Rev. Hawthorne stayed with Whittaker until the doctor arrived about an hour later. Outside, however, they could hear Grilk talking excitedly—agitatedly, even—with Jones and Mattocks about something.

Rev. Hawthorne went down to investigate. “What on earth is the matter?” he asked Mattocks.

Mattocks sighed. “Luther brought this back with him,” he said hoarsely and handed a newspaper to Rev. Hawthorne. “Said the printer swears it’s from today.”

Frowning, Rev. Hawthorne looked at the front page—and his blood ran cold when he read the date:

_August 27, 1826_

__

__

*

_Dawn, September 11, 1966_

The captain of the Soviet submarine _Sprut_ watched nine of his men row an inflatable raft toward the nearest shore, feeling deeply annoyed—at himself for getting into this predicament, at the sandbar on which the _Sprut_ rested for existing, at Lt. Yuri Rozanov for being right, damn him. The captain had only wanted to get a glimpse of the United States and hadn’t listened to Rozanov’s urgent plea to steer clear of the shore because their map was outdated. The island in front of them now hadn’t been on the map at all, and now they’d run aground and had to find a motorboat to get free before the Americans noticed and the accident turned into an international incident.

And all because the captain had had to satisfy his own damnable curiosity. _Pfui._

His aide, Polsky, joined him on the conning tower. “Beg to report, Tovarich Kapitan,” Polsky said, saluting. “There is no internal evidence we’ve been damaged.”

The captain nodded and looked back out at the silhouette of the landing party, growing smaller as it neared the shore. “Good. Thank you, Polsky.”

“External inspection will have to wait for full daylight.”

“Well, with any luck, Rozanov will find something quickly and we’ll be off this sandbar before full daylight. I don’t see any houses overlooking this beach, but they might be further back from the cliff. When does the tide come in?”

“We don’t know, Tovarich Kapitan. Our tide charts haven’t been updated since the war.”

The captain growled. How did Moscow expect them to do their jobs in the present with information that was more than twenty years out of date?

Polsky misunderstood and gulped. “B-b-but we think it will be sometime in the early afternoon.”

The captain sighed and nodded. The first rays of the sun were just beginning to light the clouds overhead, and the landing party was nearly to its goal; it looked like a couple of the men had jumped out to pull the raft all the way up onto the beach. “Well, let’s hope we’ll be gone by then. I’d better go figure out what to report.” And he turned to go down to the bridge.

But Polsky suddenly let out a strangled cry and grabbed the captain’s arm. When the captain turned back, Polsky pointed a trembling finger back toward the beach, where—there was no landing party, no raft, no beach.

There was, in fact, no island.  
“Tovarich Kapitan!” one of the navigators called up to them. “We now have two hundred meters below us!”

Polsky crossed himself. “Dear God... dear God....”

“It’s a trick,” the captain murmured, anger at the loss of his men and fear of America warring with a deeper, more primal fear of the type that had evidently gripped Polsky. “A damnable American trick! They set a trap for us!”

Polsky forgot himself entirely. “Tovarich Kapitan, how could they possibly have known that we would come this way? Are they wizards? How could they move the entire island?”

“Hold your tongue, Polsky,” the captain snapped. “If you’re going to start some superstitious nonsense—”

“Two hundred meters!” Polsky shrieked. “The sandbar is gone. The island is gone. If this is only illusion and not magic, where did they go?”

“The instruments must be wrong!” the captain shot back and clattered back down to the bridge. “You’re sure of your reading?” he demanded of the crewman at the fathometer.

“Yes, Tovarich Kapitan,” the crewman replied and gestured to the fathometer, which did show the reading of two hundred meters. “It was quite sudden.”

The captain drew a slow breath and tried to wrestle down that growing primal fear. “Sonar?”

“Nothing within twenty kilometers, Tovarich Kapitan,” the sonar man reported.

“Nothing at all? Not even a fishing boat?”

The sonar man shook his head.

“It is Sunday, sir,” noted the navigator manning the CHAYKA and Alpha radio systems. “American fishermen may not work today.”

The captain took another slow breath and went to the intercom as Polsky finally came down the ladder. “Captain to engine room,” he called.

“Engine room, Tovarich Kapitan,” came the reply.

“All engines are undamaged?”

“Yes, Tovarich Kapitan.”

The captain nodded and made up his mind. “All ahead one-third, steady as she goes.”

There was a stunned pause before the order was repeated and the sub began moving forward as easily as if there had never been a sandbar there. The captain ordered the periscope raised and listened to the steady ping of the sonar as he watched their course, mentally calculating how long it should take to reach the beach. He didn’t know what he’d do when he reached it, besides demanding the return of his men.

But the other crewmen never uttered a warning of impending collision or grounding. The sub passed the beach and the cliff and went several miles into where the island had been before the captain ordered a stop, and neither the waves nor the depth ever changed.

There was _no island._

A long pause, broken only by the constant sound of the sonar, passed before the captain quietly ordered, “Down periscope.”

“Down periscope,” came the customary echo as the captain folded up the periscope’s handles and turned away to brace himself on the map table, but no one else spoke even after the periscope was lowered. The vacant map table itself was a further knife to the captain’s heart, as it was normally manned by young Alexei Kolchin, a good boy, one of the Sprut’s best navigators, and a member of the lost landing party. The captain had been too busy sightseeing with the periscope when Rozanov had come onto the bridge to warn him, but he could still hear Kolchin whispering frantically to Rozanov about the mysterious island... the island both of them were now trapped on, wherever it was. And the captain had only himself to blame.

“Tovarich Kapitan?” Polsky finally prompted, barely audible over the sonar.

The captain drew a shuddering breath and shook his head. “Take us out of here.” And without waiting for his order to be obeyed, he went back to his cabin, sank down on his bed, and ran trembling hands over his face as he worried both over what the court-martial would find and over what had happened to his men.

*

Meanwhile, on the beach, Rozanov checked his compass and informed the other men wearily that they appeared to be on American soil—well, American sand, anyway. After securing their raft, they started off up the beach, but they hadn’t gone more than a few hundred meters when they rounded a boulder and found a young woman sitting on the sand a short distance away, her blonde hair covered by a pastel kerchief and a tan cardigan providing some protection against the cool morning sea breeze. Her head was resting on her arms, which were crossed on top of her knees, and it sounded as if she were crying.

Rozanov motioned his men back around the boulder. “Kolchin,” he whispered. “How is your English?”

“Hello, good morning,” Kolchin whispered back in that language.

“Da, da.”

“Okay.”

“Mm-hm.”

“How are you?”

Rozanov nodded, satisfied. “Very good,” he stated in English before switching back to Russian. “You come with me. We’ll ask the girl for directions to a boat rental place, but not let on that we’re Russians. The rest of you wait here.”

“Lucky Kolchin,” muttered Hrushevsky. “Get a load of the build on that—”

“Shut up, Hrushevsky,” Rozanov hissed. “We’re not here to hook up with American girls. We’ve got to get that boat and get away from this island before somebody calls the Coast Guard.”

Hrushevsky looked sullen but shut up.

Kolchin handed his submachine gun to Lysenko, drew his coat tightly around his lanky form and straightened to his full towering height, pulled a black knit hat over his blond hair, and followed Rozanov toward the girl.

“Good morning, young lady,” Rozanov called cheerfully in English and doffed his cap as they walked up to her. “A pleasant good morning to you. Please permit me to apologize for this most unusual disturbance, but we would like some conversations, please. We are two strangers in this island, and we wish to inquire where we might find powerboat—”

“Motorboat,” Kolchin corrected.

“Motor-powerboat for private use, for some brief little time.”

“There isn’t one,” the girl said dully, not raising her head.

Rozanov exchanged an alarmed look with Kolchin and ran a hand over his mouth, smoothing down his dark mustache. “No boats? This is an island with no boats?”

“Not the kind you mean.”

Rozanov chuckled nervously. “Forgive me, please—”

“You think I’m lying because you’re Russians.”

“Heh! Very clever young lady, to notice my friend and I are foreigners here, but of course not Russian, naturally. What would the Russians be doing on United States of America island, with so many animosities and hatreds between these two countries? Is too funny an idea, is it not? No, we are of course... Norwegians.”

The girl huffed. “You don’t have to lie. I saw you come in. But you don’t need to worry about my calling the police or anything. There aren’t any telephones here, either. And it’s too late anyway,” she added in the quiet tone of someone who anticipated a fatal visit from the NKVD and was resigned to it.

Tenderhearted Kolchin stepped forward and sat down beside her. “What you mean, is too late? Is too late to get motorboat, perhaps? You are sad for this?”

The girl sniffled and looked up at him—a pretty face despite the tear stains, Germanic, with eyes as blue as his. “I promise, there’s not a single motorboat on this whole island. I’m one of the only people here who even knows what a motorboat is. And even if there were one, it’s too late for you to use it to get off the island or save your submarine. Look for yourself.” And she pointed out to sea.

The sub was gone.

Rozanov rounded on her. “What is this? Is trap for us? You try to catch us with crazy tricks, send us to prison, start World War III?”

“It isn’t personal,” she insisted, starting to cry again. “I don’t know how it happens or why. All I know is that nobody can leave Gloucester Island now... not even me.”

Kolchin looked up at Rozanov in despair, swallowed hard, and turned back to the girl. “Is permitted?” he asked her, reaching an arm around her back but not actually touching her.

She studied his face for a moment, biting her lip, and then buried her face in his chest with a sob and flung her arms around him. He startled a little but then returned the embrace, pressing his cheek to the top of her head and murmuring soothing phrases in Russian.

Rozanov looked around helplessly for a moment before asking more calmly, “Forgive me, please... you say you cannot leave island?”

The girl shook her head against Kolchin’s chest. “Somebody tried to warn me yesterday. If we didn’t get off the island before dawn this morning, we’d lose our chance. I tried to tell my parents, but they insisted on staying overnight, and the ferry to the mainland doesn’t run this early, and....” She sobbed again.

“Why your parents want to stay?” Kolchin asked.

“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I don’t even know why they wanted to come here! It’s my last weekend off before I have to go back to Stanford, and they said they wanted to go to the beach, but they came down to Gloucester instead, and then they saw the island and heard about the ‘quaint old village’ here and said something about a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,’ and... and we really should have guessed when ours was the only car on the ferry and there were only a couple more in town, and when the ferryman looked at the car like he didn’t know what it was....”

“This ferry,” Rozanov interrupted, not liking the strange feeling he was getting that was growing stronger every second, the sort of feeling he’d gotten as a child listening to stories of Baba Yaga. “Is not power-motorboat?”

“No, it’s a sailboat. It’s the same sailboat they’ve used since before the War of 1812.”

Rozanov swore bitterly in Yiddish. He didn’t know how, but on some deep instinctual level, he understood at least part of what had happened—not that he could articulate it, at least not to juniors more thoroughly indoctrinated with Soviet ideology than Kolchin and he were.

The girl hiccupped and sat up, wiping her face gratefully with the handkerchief Kolchin offered her. “Thank you. I’m... I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name....”

“Alexei Andreyevich Kolchin,” said Kolchin, his deep voice rich with sympathy.

“A _lex_ ei,” she repeated, putting the emphasis on the second syllable.

“Alex _ei,_ ” he corrected. “For friends, is Alexei Andreyevich.”

“Alexei Andreyevich,” she echoed, getting the pronunciation nearly right. “My name’s Alison Palmer.”

“Ahlisohn,” he tried. “You have very nice name, Ahlisohn Pahlmyer.”

“So do you, Alexei Andreyevich.”

And there were enough sparks flying in that exchange to start a bonfire. “Excuse me, please,” Rozanov said—not that either of them heard him, being currently engaged in the universal activity of staring into each other’s eyes with the barest of smiles—and went back to the others to explain the problem in Russian.

Hrushevsky looked at Kolchin and Miss Palmer and opened his mouth to say something. Gromolsky clamped a firm hand on Hrushevsky’s shoulder, which was quite enough to shut him up because Gromolsky had been a heavyweight boxer in school.

“You’re sure she’s telling the truth, sir?” Lysenko asked.

Rozanov nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m as sure as I was that we were going to run aground when I heard where we were. The good news is, if she’s right, the American military will never find us here, and even though we’ll stand out in the town, there’s a good chance most of the people won’t even know there’s any hostility between America and Russia. How we’ll get home again, I don’t know, but at least nobody’s likely to kill us in the meantime.”

“But we don’t have any American money, sir,” Vasilov noted sensibly.

Rozanov shrugged expansively. “What can we do? We’re stranded. If we tell people honestly that we’re stranded, maybe they’ll be nice American Christians and help us out.”

Brodsky grumbled something about Christians. Gromolsky shut him up, too, but not physically: “If we must live here for any length of time,” he said, “we would do well not to antagonize our neighbors.”

“How far is it to town, sir?” Maliavin asked.

“I haven’t found out yet,” Rozanov admitted. Looking back toward Kolchin and Miss Palmer, he finally spotted a bicycle at the bottom of the cliff. “Several kilometers, possibly. I’ll ask.”

The eight of them made their way around the boulder toward Kolchin and Miss Palmer, who were quietly discussing patronymics. Apparently Americans didn’t use them. But Rozanov had the sneaking suspicion that the cultural exchange wasn’t likely to end there, especially if they didn’t get off this beach.

He cleared his throat loudly as he approached and switched back to English. “Excuse me, please. How far is town from here?”

Miss Palmer looked up with a grimace. “About ten miles as the crow flies, but by road it’s closer to twenty. It’s pretty much on the other side of the island.”

“And no automobiles?”

“I’ve only seen three or four, all in town. Mine’s the only bike I’ve seen. I’m not even sure whether any of the farmers nearby would lend you their horses.”

Rozanov growled in frustration.

“I could go see if my parents would lend me their car and then come back to get you. It’s a sedan, so I’m sure you could all fit inside.”

Rozanov considered for a moment, then nodded. “Good. You will take Kolchin.” While he wasn’t sure he wanted to encourage the relationship, he didn’t particularly want to discourage it yet, and he knew Miss Palmer would be safer with Kolchin than with any of his other men. Besides, Kolchin would obey orders, no matter how lovestruck he was. “Kolchin,” he added in Russian, “find out what you can in town, and make sure she comes back for us. We’ll start walking after you.”

Kolchin nodded his understanding and stood, helping Miss Palmer to her feet at the same time. She smiled sadly at Rozanov but didn’t let go of Kolchin’s hand, and the pair of them started off toward the bicycle. Rozanov and the others followed and began the climb up the path while Kolchin and Miss Palmer got themselves situated, then stepped aside to let the bicycle pass, Kolchin’s long legs turning the pedals and Miss Palmer on his lap with her hands on the handlebars to steer. She raised one hand to wave as they sped away.

To cap the bizarre atmosphere, Kregitin started singing an old marching song, of which he knew exactly one line in English: “It’s a long way to Tipperary....”

Rozanov had a feeling it was going to be a long day.


	2. NOW: 2006 - the beginning

  


NOW  
Chapter 1

  
_September 12, 2006_  
  
“You boys ever heard of Gloucester Island?” Bobby Singer asked over Dean Winchester’s cell phone, which was on speaker.  
  
“No, should we have?” Dean asked.  
  
“Probably not. I’d only heard rumors until a couple days ago, got a call about it. It ain’t there but one day every ten years.”  
  
“Like _Brigadoon_?” asked Dean’s brother Sam.  
  
Dean frowned at him. “Like what?”  
  
“ _Brigadoon_. Scottish town, only appeared once every hun—”  
  
“Okay, you know what? You’re a walkin’ encyclopedia of weird.”  
  
Sam rolled his eyes with a huff, and Bobby chuckled. “ _Brigadoon_ ain’t far off, Sam. You _have_ heard the story of the hurricane that saved DC in 1814, right?”*  
  
Dean was the one who answered that. “That’s one of my favorite ‘hey, this weird thing happened’ stories.”  
  
“Well, apparently, that same storm was bearin’ down on Gloucester Island a couple o’ days later, set to wipe the whole town an’ all the farms off the map. Think the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.”  
  
Both brothers hissed.  
  
“For some reason, the old salts didn’t see it comin’ in time to evacuate,” Bobby continued. “That much was confirmed by the folks on the mainland. But somebody on the island musta done somethin’ fairly radical, ‘cause when the storm cleared, the island itself was gone. Rumor has it that it popped up for about five minutes in the middle of a blizzard in May of 1816,** but the next time anyone from the island was seen on the mainland was August of 1826.”  
  
“That’s...” Dean frowned. “What the hell would even... a spell?”  
  
“Makes as much sense as anything,” said Sam. “In _Brigadoon_ , the pastor of the local church had prayed that God would protect them from witches that had been attacking the area, and God’s answer was to move the town outside the normal stream of time. I don’t think it would be impossible to construct a spell that had a similar effect.”  
  
“Messin’ with time, though, that’d take a _hell_ of a lot of mojo. We’re not talkin’, like, Salem-style teenage witches playin’ around with a grimoire, or even a bunny-boiler type. This is hard-core.”  
  
“So hard-core, nobody’s heard o’ the spell before, at least that I can find,” Bobby agreed. “Could be fae magic, for all I know. But it don’t just show up harmlessly, like Brigadoon did in the movie. People from the mainland go out there sometimes. If they get back before night, ain’t no harm done, but if not... could be twenty, thirty years ’fore they’re seen again, if ever. Russian sub ran aground off the eastern shore in 1966, lost nine men the captain sent to steal a motorboat to get ‘em unstuck. Couple o’ the sailors got busted on the mainland in ’76, tryin’ to steal some vodka and Coke; authorities managed to get ‘em to the Russian embassy without it gettin’ into the news, an’ apparently the Soviet government shipped ’em straight to Siberia ’cause their story was so crazy. The other seven never turned up. And there was a family, the Palmers, from up Concord way, disappeared in ’66 right ’fore the daughter was set to go back to Stanford, came back without her ten years later.”  
  
Sam’s eyebrows jumped, much as a dog might prick up its ears. He’d been a month shy of finishing a Stanford pre-law degree himself before a demon attack had forced him to go back on the road with Dean, hunting supernatural evil.  
  
“Down, boy,” Dean teased.  
  
Bobby laughed. “Figured that’d get Sam’s attention.”  
  
Sam rolled his eyes. “You just don’t understand school spirit, Dean. Stanford alumni look out for each other.”  
  
“Yeah, but neither of you is actually alumni.”  
  
“Dude—”  
  
“Boys,” Bobby interrupted firmly. “That ain’t the point. The point is, Gloucester Island’s set to show up again in two days, and you boys are the closest hunters who can check it out.”  
  
“Yeah, but why should we?” Dean asked, frowning again in confusion. “No offense, Bobby, but if you can’t even give us more lore than that....”  
  
Bobby sighed heavily. “Look, the guy who called me about this... he’s the man who taught me to hunt. We ain’t spoke in a long time. But the captain of that sub turned up on his doorstep a few months ago, said he was at Johns Hopkins for some long-shot experimental treatment but was desperate to know what had happened to his men ‘fore he died. Sounds like he’s still alive, but just barely. An’ with everything that’s been stirred up in the last year, ‘specially since your daddy died... Rufus an’ I both think there’s somethin’ gonna happen on Gloucester Island. Don’t ask me what. Just a hunch. But whatever it is, if it’s tied in with what’s been happenin’ to you two....”  
  
“We need to be the ones to deal with it,” Sam stated quietly.  
  
Dean sighed heavily but said nothing.  
  
After a pause, Bobby said, “I’ll forward you all the info Rufus sent me, Sam. Should give you a place to start, anyhow.”  
  
Sam nodded. “Thanks, Bobby. And... would you do us a favor and not tell the Harvelles?”  
  
“Sure. Why not?”  
  
“Jo conned me,” Dean said bitterly. “Gave us a hunt and then showed up to play bait, so now Ellen’s mad at _me_ as if I was the one who _let_ Jo tag along. And then she told Jo about Dad bein’ the one who messed up an’ got her dad killed, so now _Jo_ ain’t talkin’ to me....”  
  
“Dean,” Bobby interrupted. “What happened with John an’ Bill Harvelle ain’t nearly as simple as Ellen makes out, and even if it was, that don’t make it your fault.”  
  
Dean ran a hand over his nose and mouth. “Yeah, well....”  
  
“The point is,” Sam said, “that we’ve made Ellen mad enough for one week. We don’t need Jo changing her mind and deciding to tag along again.”  
  
The brothers could almost hear Bobby nod thoughtfully. “All right, fair enough.”  
  
“Thanks, Bobby,” they chorused.  
  
“Just keep in mind, the island only shows up for twenty-four hours, sunrise to sunrise. ’Less you’re willin’ to row yourselves to shore at first light, don’t plan on spendin’ the night there.”  
  
“Got it,” said Dean. “We’ll keep in touch.” And he hung up.  
  
Sam sat back in his seat as they drove on and wiggled his aching fingers in the cast.  
  
Dean noticed. “You doin’ okay there, Sammy? Need another pain pill?”  
  
“Nah, they make me cotton-headed.”  
  
“That’s no reason for you to be walkin’ around in pain.”  
  
“Just get me a bottle of ibuprofen.”  
  
Dean sighed and scouted for an exit near a Walgreens.  
  
A half hour later, Sam was in less pain and navigating them expertly toward Gloucester. “Weird, it’s not really on any map.”  
  
“Probably got scrubbed after it disappeared,” said Dean. “Guess we should do some more digging tomorrow, maybe find a map from 1814 so we’ll be sure we’re in the right place.”  
  
“Agreed. Want me to find a place to land for the night?”  
  
“Yeah, good idea.”  
  
They headed to a motel close to Boston.  
  
Once they were checked in, Dean went to get carry-outs for supper while Sam started working through the documents Bobby had emailed him. Dean arrived to find him popping another ibuprofen and waggling his fingers again, blinking at the screen.  
  
“Problem?” Dean asked.  
  
Sam scoffed lightly. “Tired. Thinking a fresh pair of eyes might do more good.”  
  
“Here. Scooch.” Dean dropped a box of chicken fried rice into Sam’s good hand and sat down beside him.  
  
Sam snapped the chopsticks apart and ate left-handed with them—the showoff—as he told Dean what he’d already found. “Practically nothing.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it woulda caused more of a stir if a place like Boston disappeared. Little fishing village with nothin’ around it but farms and beach...” Dean paused. “Hey, wait a sec. What’s this from 1826 about the doctor?”  
  
“Didn’t get that far, my hand started achin’.”  
  
Dean enlarged the image of a small newspaper item, proclaiming the “singular occurrence” that someone claiming to be from Gloucester Island had turned up in town to ask the doctor to come attend a Mr. Whittaker, “late of New York, a writer of comic operas. Mr. Whittaker has been presumed dead these twelve years, and indeed the doctor says he seemed near to death....”  
  
Sam frowned and swallowed his mouthful of rice before he said, “So any more on that?”  
  
Dean shook his head. “No, just says the doc got back to the mainland at sunset after having done all he could to revive Whittaker, and the next morning the island was gone again. Wonder who this Whittaker dude was.”  
  
“Let’s find out.” He set the food aside and reached for the laptop.  
  
“Ah, no—you eat.”  
  
“Dean....”  
  
“Sammy.”  
  
He sighed and ate.  
  
For his own part, Dean scarfed a few more bites of his kung pao chicken and then started the search with “Whittaker ‘comic opera’ died 1814”—and got exactly one hit, in a database on Broadway history.  
  
“Take out comic opera—run the first name and died 1814,” Sam suggested.  
  
“Dude, Whittaker’s a common last name. We’ll probably get tons of hits from that.” Dean clicked on the link and started reading about Walter Whittaker, writer of several moderately successful but now lost comedies. _More notable than his writing_ , the article went on, _is the legend that Whittaker was last known to have been vacationing on Gloucester Island off the coast of Massachusetts when that island is said to have disappeared during a hurricane in 1814. Little evidence survives to support this story, and in fact Gloucester Island may never have existed at all...._  
  
Sam held up a hand. “Wait, then there’s the Whittaker the doctor went to see......”  
  
“Foundfh like the fame guy,” Dean said with his mouth full and swallowed. “Says here his wife Elspeth had him declared dead and moved back to Scotland with their two kids, Peter and Ann.”  
  
“Wonder what happened to the island.”  
  
Dean shook his head. “Like I said, whatever it was took a hell of a lot of mojo.”  
  
Sam leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking. But Dean saw the pain around his eyes.  
  
He shut the laptop. “Hey. We got all day tomorrow. Finish your food and get some sleep.”  
  
Sam ate three more bites, then poked at it and dozed off.  
  
Dean sighed and put the rest in the fridge, along with his own leftovers. He always hated seeing Sammy in pain, even at the best of times, but now, with their father’s last words still ringing in Dean’s head... he hated it all the more.  
  


* * *

  
Morning came and Sam was in a little less pain. He insisted he was good to work on his own, but Dean decided he’d rather not be in a different part of town if something decided to break Sam’s other wrist. So they spent most of the morning together at the National Archives in Boston, with Sam schmoozing information out of the archivists while Dean searched online newspaper archives. That wasn’t Dean’s favorite division of labor, but they agreed that the cast added enough to Sam’s harmless, earnest college student look that even the starchiest archivist would let him look at the maps from the War of 1812.  
  
“Got it,” Sam said as he plopped a map on the table.  
  
“Good,” said Dean, widening his eyes briefly as he turned away from the laptop. “I was goin’ cross-eyed.”  
  
Sam laughed softly. “Here, check this out.” He tapped it with a finger. “Gloucester.”  
  
Sure enough, there was the island, large as life, some thirty miles off the southern coast of Cape Cod. It curved inward slightly on the eastern side, but the town and the main harbor appeared to be on the northwestern end, facing toward the mainland.  
  
“That’s....” Dean looked up, lips pursing, as he slotted mileage and horsepower in his head. “... A three-hour drive.”  
  
“You wanna leave now, after lunch, or after supper?”  
  
“Food. Let’s get lunch and head there after.”  
  
Sam nodded and gathered up the map, fumbling slightly due to his cast.  
  
Dean knew better than to offer to help. Stubborn kid.  
  
Sam managed to get it in the end, and one bag of greasy burgers later, they were on their way to Cape Cod. Sam seemed to be hurting worse, so Dean distracted him with a steady stream of conversation about _Murder, She Wrote_. By the time they arrived, they had degenerated into banter.  
  
After checking into a motel, Dean dropped Sam at the local library and went down to the docks to chat with the old-timers. As usual, he found them willing to talk about anything.  
  
“Ayuh, always has been some strange things happenin’ this time o’ year,” one of them said. “Every ten years and a day, just like clockwork, old Hawkins comes into the harbor, a-rowin’ his scow from Lord knows where, just like he has since afore I was born. Never aged a day.”  
  
“Hawkins?” Dean frowned. “He got a first name?”  
  
“He _says_ he’s Col. Fendall Hawkins, as was at Valley Forge with George Washington,” another man said and scoffed. “Why, there isn’t a soul alive who’d believe that story!”  
  
Dean excused himself and called Sam with the new information.  
  
“I’ll look him up,” Sam promised. “See if you can find out any more about those Russian sailors.”  
  
Dean went back to his friends and shot the breeze for a few minutes, then asked about Russian sailors.  
  
The old-timers went silent a moment. Then one said, “That mighta been the strangest thing of all. I’m guessin’ you mean those two that turned up in ’76, though you don’t look old enough to have heard about it first-hand.”  
  
“You’re right, I was told about it,” Dean said. “I was told they were spies.”  
  
“Well, you were told wrong,” said the first man while the other guffawed. “Though it came damn near to causin’ a panic—couple people figured it was an invasion before somebody who remembered the _War of the Worlds_ fiasco knocked some sense into ’em.”  
  
Dean laughed with them. “Well, now you’ve got me curious!” And he always said Sam was the one good with people?  
  
The old man took a long drink of coffee. “Well, sir, it was late on a Saturday afternoon. The scow didn’t come in ’til after lunch that day, an’ it wasn’t just Hawkins on it. Family called the Palmers came ashore with him, arguin’ about their daughter elopin’ with some stranger and kickin’ up an awful fuss when they saw the bicentennial signs that were still around the place. Never did hear what became o’ them or their daughter. But anyway, Hawkins had already left when we got a call—I was a police officer in those days, before I retired—we got a call to go over to the liquor store on Pine. That’s about five miles from here.”  
  
Dean nodded and held out his empty cup for the speaker to refill with coffee.  
  
The speaker obliged and refilled his own cup at the same time. “Well, I don’t know how those two Russians got that far into town without somebody spottin’ them, but there they were, black turtlenecks, black pants, knee-high black boots. One of ’em had a case of Coke bottles in his hands, an’ he was arguin’ with the other one about the vodka selection. Neither one spoke a word of English, an’ I got the impression they didn’t have a dime of American money, either. Seemed like they were plannin’ to just walk off with their drinks.”  
  
“So there were two. Not a whole boatload—six or seven.”  
  
“N-o, not that _we_ ever saw. Showed their papers when I collared ’em, an’ they were Soviet right enough, but long since expired. The chief managed to keep things quiet until a translator could get out here. But the first thing the men asked the translator was where the old man was. Finally worked out they were askin’ for Hawkins, but Hawkins had already gone home. Never seen two men look more panicked when they heard that. Couldn’t follow what they said, but the gist of what the translator said was that they’d stowed away on Hawkins’ boat to find somethin’ other than tea or beer to drink, but they hadn’t figured on what to do if they got left.” The old man leaned forward and lowered his voice. “But the strangest thing is, they said they’d been marooned overnight on Gloucester Island and had to get back afore their lieutenant found out they were gone. One of ’em said it was bad enough being marooned once tryin’ to _avoid_ an international incident, but they’d _really_ catch it from Moscow if they actually _did_ cause World War III.”  
  
Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “What happened to them?”  
  
The old man shrugged. “Feds picked ’em up, took ’em to the Russian embassy, an’ that’s the last I ever heard.”  
  
“So if they were on Gloucester... they were ten years late.”  
  
“Gloucester Island!” cried the loudmouth who’d dismissed the idea that Fendall Hawkins actually was a Revolutionary War veteran. “That whole idea was debunked when my _grandmother_ was a child! There never was a Gloucester Island!”  
  
“You shut your trap, Cranston,” another man shot back. “I tell you, I’ve _seen_ it!”  
  
“And anyway,” asked a third, “how the hell would a pair of Russians know that story when they didn’t even speak English?!”  
  
“He’s got a point,” said Dean and nodded toward the third man. “It’s not like Soviet Russians had any knowledge of weird Massachusetts legends.”  
  
Cranston launched into a detailed conspiracy theory about what the Soviets might have taught their sailors in the event of their having to come ashore “like that one sub that surfaced in the San Francisco Bay because one of the crew had appendicitis,” but the old policeman shot Dean a look and nodded toward a quieter corner, a hint Dean took and followed him in that direction.  
  
“You’re goin’ out there tomorrow, aren’t you, son?” the old policeman whispered once they were out of earshot of the rest of the group.  
  
“Damn, am I that obvious?” Dean smirked.  
  
“Maybe not to them.” The old man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “But I’m a cop—and a friend o’ Rufus Turner’s. I know a hunter when I see one.”  
  
Dean broke into a wide smile and held out his hand. “Dean Winchester.”  
  
He chuckled and shook his hand. “David Herald. John’s boy?”  
  
“One of ’em.”  
  
“Well, my advice is to stay far away from that island. That’s wild magic and it’s hurtful to everything on that island.”  
  
Dean sighed and shook his head. “Mr. Herald, if you know about hunting, you know why we have to go check it out. The Palmer girl, those other Russians, the people of the town, Walter Whittaker... we can’t just leave them to suffer.”  
  
“Look, boy. You seem like a good egg. If you go, alert someone and be back here before dark. Got me?”  
  
“A friend already knows that we’re here and why. He gave us the same warning.”  
  
“Be careful, boy.” He curled a hand over Dean’s shoulder. “Be real careful.” And he left it at that.  
  
Dean sighed and nodded. “I appreciate the concern, sir. Truly.” And he, too, left it at that.  
  
Dean got back to the motel room in time to find Sam attempting to scratch under the cast with one of the rods they used to clean the guns with.  
  
“Quit that!” Dean yelped immediately. “You wanna give yourself an infection?!”  
  
“It’s clean!” Sam shot back. “I washed it before!”  
  
“Yeah, but what about the germs under the cast? You can’t wash under there!”  
  
Sam sighed and handed over the rod. “So what’s the plan?”  
  
“The plan,” Dean replied as he wiped the dead skin off the end of the rod and put it away, “is to head down to the docks at first light and wait for Hawkins to show up. You didn’t find any portraits of him, did you?”  
  
“I did, actually.” He slid it from the stack of papers and handed it over.  
  
Dean looked at it and blinked. “Huh. He looks just like the colonel from _Sgt. Bilko_.”  
  
Sam huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, he does.”  
  
“We’ll probably see his three-cornered hat before his face, though.”  
  
“Oh, he’s still in uniform?” Sam asked. “Is that what the reports said?” And that was the clue that he was not taking his pain medication. He was becoming distracted by it.  
  
With a stern glare, Dean got the painkillers—the prescription ones, not the ibuprofen—and slapped them into Sam’s good hand. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Dean cut him off. “You’re no good to me like this, dude. Take the damn pills and get some sleep.”  
  
“Fine,” Sam growled and took them.  
  
Dean sighed and sat down on the edge of Sam’s bed. “Look, I get that you don’t like the way the pills make you feel, but you’re not thinkin’ straight even without them. If we’re gonna break that spell tomorrow, we both need to be sharp.”  
  
Sam hummed and closed his eyes. “... point made....” And he was asleep.  
  
Dean shook his head and pulled out his phone. He dialed, waited, and responded to the answering “Hello?” with a tired “Hey, Bobby.”  
  
“Dean. You okay?”  
  
“Yeah, we’ve... we’ve found a lot, more than Rufus had sent you. We’re at the closest port on the mainland, and we’ll catch the ferry to Gloucester Island when it shows up.”  
  
“Dammit, so it’s real.”  
  
“Looks like it.”  
  
“You keep in touch. You call me before you leave.”  
  
“Bobby... I’m gonna have my hands full with Sammy in the mornin’. He’s out cold now, but his wrist’s botherin’ ’im, an’ the skin’s startin’ to itch, too.”  
  
“Still. You call.”  
  
Dean sighed. “Look, if nothin’ else, I’ll call when we get back to the mainland, all right?”  
  
“All right.”  
  
“And... thanks. For carin’.”  
  
“Dammit, boy, what do you expect?” The words were gruff. The affection was undeniable.  
  
Dean fought tears for a moment. What he finally said was, “I’ll bring you back the tackiest mug we can find. For old times’ sake. Or a Farrah Fawcett poster.”  
  
That surprised a laugh out of Bobby.  
  
Dean cleared his throat to cover for the fact that words didn’t really want to come out at the moment. “Guess I’ll let you go, scout some supper. Dunno if Sammy’ll eat clam chowder, but he needs the calcium.”  
  
“He should. Cheese sandwich or something similar if he won’t. That’s how I’d get you to eat calcium, remember?”  
  
Dean couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “Yeah. Good times.”  
  
A phone jangled on the other end. “Gotta go. Take care of yourself, Dean.”  
  
“You too, Bobby.” Dean hung up, stared at the phone, and failed to keep a tear from falling. There was no way he could tell Bobby, or Sam, that he’d already made a decision they’d both hate—but at least Bobby hadn’t made him promise to call the following evening. That was a promise he couldn’t make.  
  
That call would never come.

~~~~~

* For those who haven’t studied this incident from the War of 1812: British troops set fire to much of Washington, DC, on August 24, 1814, including the White House and the original Library of Congress—but the next day, a major storm (possibly a hurricane) blew through town, putting out the fires and spawning a massive tornado that rattled the British into a retreat.

  
** Thanks to the explosive eruption of Mount Tambora, 1816 was known as “the Year without a Summer”; Massachusetts had blizzards into June.


	3. 2006 -- Gloucester Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the players we've met before are in the same place at the same time. With the Winchesters now involved, can there be anything but trouble?

Chapter 2

  
Alexei lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as the first light of dawn began to creep past the top of the curtains, and tried to remember what day it was and how long he’d been there. He could count only four actual sunrises, including this one, but he had too many memories for only three full days. Some were sharp and clear—proposing to Alison at the door of the inn, getting married in the church with Rozanov as their best man despite the Palmers’ objections, buying this house on the cliff overlooking the island’s eastern shore, saving Jeffrey Maxwell from drowning. But others seemed stretched and hazy. How long had he worked on Luther Grilk’s farm to save up enough to buy the house? How long had it taken Gromolsky and Brodsky to help them modernize it, and where had they gotten the generator? Alexei’s English was too fluent, his Russian too faded, the feeling of Alison in his arms too familiar.  
  
How could this be only their fourth day?  
  
“’Lyoshka?” Alison’s sleepy voice asked.  
  
And yet—Alexei didn’t _feel_ any older, and neither he nor Alison _looked_ any older. However many meals they ate, their panty never seemed to hold less than full American abundance. And most of the people in town still seemed to be learning everyone’s names, except Rozanov’s. His they knew best not only because he’d been their spokesman but also because he’d taken up residence at the inn, watching over a man named Whittaker who was apparently the only other Jewish person on the island. (Rozanov was the only person on the _Sprut_ who knew Alexei was a Christian; Alexei was the only one who knew Rozanov was Jewish. It made a good basis for friendship.) If they had been on the island for years and years, wouldn’t things have changed more?  
  
“’Lyoshenka?” Triple diminutive. Alison was worried.  
  
Alexei finally looked at her with as much of a smile as he could muster. “Good morning, Alyshka.”  
  
Satisfied that he wasn’t locked in his head anymore, she smiled back and snuggled closer against his side just as a wave of vertigo and nausea washed over him. It had passed by the time she said, “Think we’ve stopped.”  
  
That was the other strange thing: that sense of being wrenched through time and space without moving an inch. It happened every morning—and Alexei and Alison seemed to be the only people who noticed it.  
  
“What day is it?” he asked.  
  
She thought for a moment before answering. “Wednesday… I think.”  
  
He hummed in disappointment. “I wish it could be Saturday.”  
  
“Well, the ferry doesn’t run until 10. If we get any guests, which I kind of hope we won’t, it won’t be until closer to lunchtime.”  
  
He smiled and kissed her forehead. “Good.”  
  
They took their time getting up and getting ready for the day. In fact, the clock said it was just after 10 when they finally went out on the porch to enjoy their second cup of coffee on the porch swing. He didn’t know how long they sat there, savoring the sunshine and sea breeze and each other’s company, before the peace was interrupted by a surprisingly foreign noise: the sound of a car engine. Some time later—maybe a minute, maybe a year—a big black car pulled off the road in front of the house and parked, and two men got out of it.  
  
The taller closed the car door and drew his right arm over his stomach, revealing the cast poking out of the sleeve. “Talk about back in time, dude....”  
  
“Yeah, no kidding,” replied the other, then turned to smile at the couple on the porch.  
  
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Alexei called.  
  
“Good morning!” the taller smiled, revealing dimples. “We’re looking for a Mr. Whittaker.”  
  
“Oh, sorry, he doesn’t live here,” Alison said. “He’s at the inn in town. But he’s very sick—I don’t know if he can have visitors.”  
  
“Well,” he gave a kind of a half-laugh, half-chuff, “could you please direct us?”  
  
“Sure! But as long as you’re here, won’t you come in and have some coffee? I’d hate for you to have come all this way for nothing.”  
  
“Coffee sounds great,” the smaller man grinned.  
  
Alexei grinned back and stood. “Good, please do! I am Alexei Kolchin, and this is my wife Alison.”  
  
“I’m Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam.” He ignored Sam’s surprised blink and followed Alison into the house.  
  
After Sam followed his brother, he pulled him aside. “Dean, we need to be off by dark, remember? We don’t have time to waste.”  
  
Dean just smiled at him. “Coffee is never a waste of time, Sammy. Especially not when it smells like _that_.”  
  
Sam huffed, exasperated, and pulled a small rectangular device out of his pocket. A small screen on it lit up when he pushed a button.  
  
“What is that, please?” Alexei asked, curious.  
  
Sam blinked in visible surprise. “Uh... it’s a phone.”  
  
“A telephone with no wires?” Alexei looked at Alison, who seemed just as baffled as he was.  
  
Sam nodded. “Yeah, they’ve been out for a while....”  
  
Trying to hide his unease, Alexei asked, “May I look more closely, please?”  
  
“Sure.” Sam handed him the phone. “I can’t get a signal anyway. Tower must be down.”  
  
Alexei accepted the little thing, smaller than a handheld radio, and looked it over carefully. There were buttons on the front with numbers and Latin letters, plus other buttons with icons he didn’t quite understand—one looked like a green phone handset picked up off the hook, another like a red phone hung up, and a third like a camera. The little screen displayed the time (10:30) in large numbers, and below that....  
  
His blood ran cold.  
  
 _September 14, 2006_  
  
“No...” he breathed, his heart beginning to race as he shook his head. “No, is... is not true, is trick, Amerikanski trick!”  
  
His wife ran over, hearing his distress. “What? What’s wrong?”  
  
Alexei showed her the phone. “Forty years, Alyshka! _Forty years!_ ”  
  
Her jaw dropped and she snatched the phone. “No! This...” She thrust it toward Sam, making the young man take a step back in reflex. “Is this _true?_ ”  
  
Dean raised his chin, looking at them narrowly. “It’s true. And you’re Alison Palmer and... you’re one of the guys off the Russian sub.” When Alexei opened his mouth, unsure whether to deny it or plead for mercy, Dean raised his hand. “Relax. The Cold War’s over. It’s not gonna cause World War III for anyone to find out that you’re here.”  
  
“Over?” Alexei gasped. “... that’s....”  
  
Alison took his hand. “Everything we’ve worked for.... we can live in peace.”  
  
Tears welled up in Alexei’s eyes as he squeezed her hand. “ _Da._ In peace.” Then he looked at their guests again. “Please... tell us what we have missed.”  
  
The brothers looked at each other, then Sam said, “You know you’ve missed time? You can sense it?”  
  
Alexei nodded as Alison answered, “Here on the edge of the island—it’s like time moves too slowly. I don’t feel it in town so much.”  
  
Dean curled his hand over Sam’s shoulder. “Come on. We still need to get that coffee and you need some pain pills for that arm.”  
  
Sam didn’t look happy about staying, but Alison gave back his phone and plied the brothers with coffee and cake while Alexei asked questions about the state of the world and answered what few questions he could about the state of the island. It felt like they’d talked for hours when Dean finally gave in to Sam’s insistence that they needed to go back to town to find Whittaker.  
  
“We’ll go with you,” Alexei offered. “Easier to help you find inn, and there are some few things we need to buy at market.”  
  
Alison nodded, and the brothers gave in, though Sam looked slightly pinched, which might have been pain. But his pained look gave way to astonishment when he stood and caught sight of the clock.  
  
It was only 10:45.  
  
Both Alison and Alexei gushed over the car, which had Dean preening.  
  
“We don’t see many cars on the island,” Alison explained as they got in the back seat. “I’ve got a bike, but most people still get around on foot or on horseback.”  
  
“So we’re really going to stick out,” Sam said gloomily.  
  
“Well, yes, but so do we. They’re more used to tourists in town, though—it’s less common for anyone to come out this way unless they want to look out at the actual sea instead of the bay between here and Cape Cod.” Alison laughed wryly and took Alexei’s hand again. “I don’t know what we were thinking, trying to turn the Selwyn place into a bed-and-breakfast. It’s not like we _want_ overnight guests to be stuck here like we are.”  
  
“Maybe just a restaurant?” Sam put in.  
  
“That would be better idea if there were more traffic on this road,” Alexei admitted. “But was only house for sale when we were ready to buy.”  
  
They lapsed into silence then, broken only by directions. Dean put a tape in the tape deck—very different from the 8-tracks Alexei had seen in a few American movies, and the music was a different form of rock ’n’ roll than he was used to. The album played all the way through before they got back to town.  
  
“So... this is where we’ll find Whittaker?” Sam asked as he got out of the car.  
  
“Aw, come on, Sammy,” Dean complained. “We’ve got plenty of time until the ferry runs again. Let’s go help Alexei and Alison get their groceries, huh?”  
  
Sam suggested they split up because he wouldn’t be much help one-handed, but Dean just got louder and more immature acting until Sam gave in just to shut him up.  
  
Just then Alexei caught sight of Rozanov at the front desk of the inn. “You go ahead, please,” he told the brothers. “I see someone I must speak to for a moment.”  
  
Alison went with Sam, talking to him, and Dean lingered a bit behind so he could try to overhear.  
  
Alexei noticed and ducked inside. “Gospodin Rozanov,” he said.  
  
Rozanov’s smile dimmed as he noticed the non-Soviet honorific. “Gospodin Kolchin,” he returned.  
  
“I have incredible news,” Alexei said in Russian. “I have confirmation that it is the year 2006 and that the Cold War is past.”  
  
Rozanov’s eyes went wide. “Where did you hear this?” he asked in the same language.  
  
“From the men who brought us into town in their car. They are asking for your patient.”  
  
Rozanov glanced toward the door and drew Alexei further toward the door to the bar. “Who are they?” he demanded quietly.  
  
Alexei shrugged. “Americans. Sam and Dean Winchester. They seem to know something about what’s going on here, but they had a lot of questions Alison and I couldn’t answer.”  
  
Rozanov blew the air out of his cheeks and glanced upward, toward Whittaker’s room. “He’s not awake yet. But this morning, he said he thought something was changing. When he wakes up, I’ll ask if he’s willing to see them, but I can’t promise anything.”  
  
“We may have another problem. Sam is very anxious to get back to the mainland before dark—but Dean acts like he doesn’t want to leave.”  
  
Rozanov swore under his breath.  
  
“I’m convinced they both know what might happen if they stay, which makes the one’s actions most puzzling indeed.”  
  
“He must be hiding from something, or trying to protect the other.”  
  
“Both make sense, but what would they want with Whittaker?”  
  
Rozanov shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask him. In the meantime, stay with them. I’ll get word to you as soon as I know anything.”  
  
“ _Spasiba_.”  
  
“ _Prozhalyista. Do svedanya._ ” And Rozanov headed back upstairs.  
  
“ _Do svedanya_ ,” Alexei whispered, turning and heading back to Dean. “I am going to assume you do not speak Russian.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “I have enough trouble with English. What’d your pal say?”  
  
“He is uncertain whether Whittaker will be able to see you. He has gone to see how the old man is faring.”  
  
Dean nodded, looked around, and sighed. “Listen, Alexei... we don’t have a lot of money, but... there’s some bad stuff gunnin’ for me an’ my brother right now, and... well, Alison said you guys wanna turn your house into a bed-and-breakfast, so I was wonderin’ if... maybe we could stay for a few nights.”  
  
“I... would not advise it. But should you require it... ask Alison.”  
  
“I know what I’m askin’, dude. But there’s... there’s some stuff goin’ on that I can’t tell Sammy about. I just...” Dean broke off, shaking his head. “I gotta keep him safe, y’know?”  
  
“Ah, you are the older brother.” Alexei smiled knowingly.  
  
Dean nodded. “Ever since our mom died, he’s been my responsibility. That’s my one job, ‘Look after Sammy.’ And now... I-I can’t really explain, but a place like this—did—did you ever see _Brigadoon_?”  
  
“I don’t believe we’ve met, no.”  
  
Dean chuckled. “No, it’s a movie. Gene Kelly and Cyd Cherisse.”  
  
“No, we didn’t get a lot of cinema where... where I grew up.”  
  
“It’s about a town like this, that... kinda exists outside the normal stream of time. People were tryin’ to escape witches, an’ that was the result. And I just think... the stuff that’s after us, after Sam... maybe if we disappear completely for a few decades, it’ll throw ‘em off the trail.”  
  
Alexei opened his mouth, but then Alison returned with Sam, their arms full of groceries.  
  
Dean opened the trunk. “Here you go.”  
  
The purchases fit handily in the car’s spacious trunk, and the two families drove back to the house in comfortable silence.  
  
No sooner had they unloaded, however, than Sam insisted on returning to town. Dean insisted on staying for lunch. Alexei had to forestall a fight by admitting that Whittaker might not even be awake yet. Alison looked as worried as Alexei felt, but there was little they could do beyond trying to be gracious hosts.  
  
The brothers talked quietly in the corner about what they would talk to Whittaker about while Alison made lunch. Alexei listened as best he could without appearing to eavesdrop. The things they said sounded crazy—but then again, there were the time discrepancies to deal with. Who was Alexei to say what the whole truth was?  
  


* * *

  
Something was wrong. Sam knew Dean wasn’t dealing well with Dad’s death, and he’d been kind of off for the last few weeks even beyond that, but the way he was acting today... it was like he _wanted_ to stay on the island but wouldn’t tell Sam that or tell him why. It was even more irritating than Sam’s broken wrist.  
  
Alison smiled as she sat down next to him and handed him a pencil. “For the itch.”  
  
Sam smiled sheepishly. “Thanks.”  
  
“You seem upset. Can I help?”  
  
Sam sighed. “I don’t know. We have to get back to the mainland, but we need to talk to Whittaker, and... Dean’s just goofing around.”  
  
She nodded. “It’s frustrating. I know how I felt when my parents brought me here. All I could think of was I needed to get back to Stanford, and now....”  
  
“At least you got a husband out of the deal.” Sam shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to Stanford myself, even if we do get off the island. I just wish Dean would _talk_ to me.”  
  
“I’m an only child, but Alexei had a brother. I’m sure you can talk to him about your frustrations and he’d listen.”  
  
“I dunno. It’s pretty specific to our situation.” Sam paused. “There is one thing you could tell me, though. Is there anyplace else on the island where you sense anything weird?”  
  
Alison chuckled. “Define weird.”  
  
“Cold spots, strange smells... just anything that makes your hair stand on end. It might not even be something you can define.”  
  
Alison thought for a moment. “Well... there’s this one spot in the church that gives me the willies. Not that we’ve been back to the church since Sunday, but when we were there to get married... even Lt. Rozanov noticed it. But we never asked anybody about it.”  
  
Sam stood. “Show me.”  
  
Alison nodded and got up but poked her head into the kitchen, where Alexei and Dean were still talking. “Hey, Dean, can we borrow your car? I need to show Sam something in town.”  
  
Dean stood up. “I’ll come with you.”  
  
“As will I,” said Alexei, looking worried.  
  
She nodded and led the little parade out.  
  
Sam would have been glad that Dean was so quick to volunteer to go with them... but the first thing he did after starting the car was to swap the AC/DC tape he’d played earlier for a Beatles mixtape—one that had “Hey Jude” on it.  
  
“Dean,” Sam whined. Then he cringed at his own whine. Then he sighed because he hated whining and why did he always seem to be the _little_ brother lately?  
  
Dean shot Sam a look that was hard to interpret before snapping, “Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole.” And before Sam could protest again or explain himself, Dean put the car in gear and drove away.  
  
“Seems you always drive,” Sam growled.  
  
“Shut up, Sam.”  
  
The Kolchins looked at each other, visibly uncomfortable. Sam huffed and looked out the window at the too-calm sea, flexing his aching hand.  
  
Without taking his eyes from the road, Dean said softly, “Painkillers in the glove box, Sammy. No need for you to hurt.”  
  
“I need my mind clear if we’re gonna figure out what’s up with this place.”  
  
“Tylenol, Sammy. I know you need your mind clear.”  
  
Sam grimaced and dug the bottle of Tylenol out of the glove compartment, shook a couple of Tylenol into his hand, and dry-swallowed them.  
  
Dean snorted. “Brothers. Alison, there’s a water bottle in the cooler. Can you hand it to Sammy, please?”  
  
“Uh, sure,” said Alison, rummaged in the cooler, and passed the water to Sam.  
  
“What a country,” Alexei murmured.  
  
Sam mumbled a thanks but rolls his eyes at his brother.  
  
The car was quiet after that, aside from the music, until they reached the church. Once they’d parked, however, Sam went to the trunk to get an EMF meter.  
  
Dean squinted up against the sun at the steeple. “This is where it all started, isn’t it?”  
  
Sam looked at him. “What makes you say that?”  
  
“Can’t you feel it? It’s like... it’s like we’re in the center of a whirlwind.”  
  
Sam thought about it, and Dean was right. There was that dead-calm sense about the place that usually went with the eye of a hurricane. He switched on the EMF meter, and the needle swung toward the high end of the scale. The reading increased as he followed Alison inside, and when he scanned the place behind the back pews that she pointed out to him, the meter went crazy.  
  
“That’s it,” he murmured as Dean came up beside him. “That’s the exact point where the spell was cast.”  
  
“So... think we need to go talk to Whittaker.” His brother frowned, eyes canting upward in a way that made him look very young. “Whittier? Whitehead?”  
  
“Whittaker,” Sam corrected. “What’s wrong with you, Dean?”  
  
“I forgot the name—big deal.”  
  
Sam huffed, but before he could say anything else, a man in very old-fashioned clerical garb walked in through another door and looked at them in surprise. “May I help you gentlemen?” the pastor asked.  
  
“Yes,” Sam said. “We’re looking for a Mr. Whittaker.”  
  
The pastor’s face clouded. “For what reason?”  
  
“Information,” Sam said. “We... we know about the spell and were wondering if we could help.”  
  
The pastor blinked in confusion. “You know—are—are you Men of Letters, then?”  
  
Dean shook his head. “Never heard of them.”  
  
“Well, if you’re not Men of Letters, who are you?”  
  
“I’m Dean Winchester. This is my brother Sam. It’s our job to take care of things like this.”  
  
“Winchester,” the pastor murmured. “And yet... can it be....” He drew a deep breath and seemed to come to a decision. “Please sit down, gentlemen, and you too, Mr. and Mrs. Kolchin. I don’t know if Mr. Whittaker will be well enough to see you today, but I’ll tell you what I can.”  
  
The four sat down and waited.  
  
“I should introduce myself, first of all,” the pastor said as he joined them. “I’m Rev. Hawthorne. I’ve been the parson here since 1793.”  
  
Alexei gasped.  
  
Rev. Hawthorne smiled wryly. “Yes, Mr. Kolchin, I’m aware it’s been nearly two hundred years in the outside world. I’m one of the few people in town who does know that. To everyone else, it’s still 1814, and we’re still at war with England.”  
  
“So what happened?” Dean asked.  
  
Rev. Hawthorne sighed. “I’m afraid the particulars you want will have to come from Mr. Whittaker himself. I can give you only the context. There had been strange occurrences on the island ever since it was first settled, and Mr. Whittaker, as a Man of Letters, had come to study them. The Men of Letters are… were… a society dedicated to the study of the supernatural. They describe themselves as ‘preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that man does not understand.’ They have also made a study of the more arcane forms of magic, following the path of scholars like Albertus Magnus. I don’t ordinarily approve of the practice of magic, of course, but then… then the storm came.  
  
“We had no warning until the storm was almost upon us, and by then, the sea was too rough for any of our vessels to make it to the mainland safely. No one had any ideas of what to do until Mr. Whittaker proposed performing a spell here in the church at dawn. He seemed to think this wasn’t the best place, but it was already raining too hard to do it outside. I didn’t understand the words he said; they weren’t in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. The spell seemed to drain him physically, though.”  
  
Sam hummed thoughtfully. That still left a wide spectrum of possibilities. “Do go on, Reverend.”  
  
Rev. Hawthorne sighed. “Well, whatever the spell was meant to do, it worked. The storm vanished. Then moments later, a blizzard struck. No one was prepared for winter weather—it was _August!_ A panic started, and certain of the town leaders threatened Mr. Whittaker with grievous harm unless he did the spell again. He tried to protest that it was too soon, that he needed a week to recover, but no one would heed him. So he did the spell again… and it nearly killed him.  
  
“That was almost a month ago, by our reckoning. Every morning since, the spell has reactivated. Mr. Whittaker revives slowly over the course of the day, and people pass freely to and from the mainland, but most people from the island don’t know that another ten years has slipped away. They notice only how oddly mainlanders dress and the occasional new piece of kit, like the automobile.” Rev. Hawthorne shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happened to the Men of Letters, but if you gentlemen _can_ help, we’d all be most grateful.”  
  
Sam nodded slowly. “We’ll have to talk to Whittaker, find out exactly what he did. Then we have resources on the mainland that should be able to help. At the very least, we can tell you whether or not the spell can be broken.”  
  
“Yeah, but Sammy, I’m _starvin’_ ,” said Dean. “We should get some supper ’fore we talk to Whittaker.”  
  
“No,” Sam said, whirling to face him. “You’ve been delaying all day and I won’t have it anymore! We’ll talk first and get food on the mainland! In the meantime, you can grab a snack from the Impala.”  
  
“We have until dawn!” Dean thundered. “And we haven’t had a real day off in months—hell, even this is a working vacation! So you can just _chill_ , all right?!” And he stormed out.  
  
“What the hell?” Sam growled. He turned to the priest and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Father, but honestly, what the _hell?_ ”  
  
“How long has he been like this?” Rev. Hawthorne asked.  
  
“Define ‘this,’” Sam snarled.  
  
Rev. Hawthorne sighed. “I’m only trying to help, Mr. Winchester.”  
  
“I know. I’m sorry.” Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “I just... he’s only like this when he’s trying to protect me.”  
  
“What might he be trying to protect you from by staying _here?_ ”  
  
Sam ran his good hand through his hair. “I don’t know. He’s been like this since our dad passed.”  
  
Rev. Hawthorne nodded slowly. “And how did that happen?”  
  
“Officially, injuries from a car crash.”  
  
“And unofficially?”  
  
“He made some kind of deal—his life for Dean’s.”  
  
Rev. Hawthorne looked alarmed. “How do you know?”  
  
“He’s not hurt bad, Dean’s all broken up. Suddenly Dean’s completely well and Dad drops dead.”  
  
“Did anything else happen immediately before your father’s death?”  
  
“No, I don’t think... wait... he sent me for coffee.”  
  
“And who else was in the room?”  
  
“No one.” Sam shook his head. “Just Dad and Dean.”  
  
Rev. Hawthorne nodded. “So perhaps your brother is trying to shield you from something that passed between them while you were out of the room.”  
  
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds like my family.”  
  
Alexei shifted uncomfortably. “What should we do, then?”  
  
Sam spread his hands. “I don’t know till we talk to Whittaker.”  
  
Alison turned to him. “Sam, you said you had friends on the mainland. Should you contact them now in case... well, in case Dean refuses to leave?”  
  
He blinked at her. “I was under the impression that you couldn’t get a signal to the mainland.”  
  
“We’ve never tried, but... maybe someone could row you out just far enough to get a signal.”  
  
Sam nodded.  
  
Rev. Hawthorne directed them to a boat rental at the harbor. Alison volunteered to keep an eye on Dean, while Alexei rowed Sam out of the harbor about half a mile. There Sam got a signal and instantly dialed Bobby’s number.  
  
Bobby answered on the second ring. “Sam?”  
  
“Bobby, what year is it?” Sam asked.  
  
“It’s still 2006, boy. Somethin’ wrong?”  
  
“I think Dean is going to try to trap us here.”  
  
“WHAT?!”  
  
So Sam told him everything he knew—which wasn’t much.  
  
Bobby sighed heavily. “All right. I’ll get to workin’ on the leads you got so far. Maybe Rufus’ll know somethin’. You run into any o’ the Russians yet?”  
  
“Alexei is in the boat with me.” Sam smiled.  
  
“Good. At least Rufus can tell the captain his men are all right.” Bobby paused. “Listen, Sam... look after your brother, all right?”  
  
Sam nodded. “I will. And if you don’t hear from us by morning... we’ll see you in ten years.”  
  
“Hope to hell I talk to you tomorrow.” And he hung up.  
  
Sam blew the air out of his cheeks and looked at Alexei again. “Okay. Let’s go see if Whittaker’s awake.”  
  
Alexei nodded and reversed course. They found Dean pacing the beach as they landed.  
  
“What the hell, Sam?” Dean exploded.  
  
“Made a phone call, that’s all. I didn’t leave you.”  
  
“Phone call?”  
  
“To Bobby. Keeping him in the loop.”  
  
Dean turned away and ran his hand over his mouth before turning back to Sam. “You shoulda told me where you were goin’.”  
  
“Yeah, I should have.” The quiet admission short-circuited the argument.  
  
Dean already had his mouth open to continue fussing, but instead he simply huffed. “C’mon. Let’s get some grub.”  
  
“Dean....”  
  
“Look, Whittaker’s at the inn, right? And the inn has a pub.”  
  
“And we still haven’t heard from Rozanov,” Alison added.  
  
“Exactly,” said Dean. “So unless you wanna leave now and come back in ten years to talk to Whittaker, we may as well eat at the pub.”  
  
Sam opened his mouth to answer, but his stomach made a low grumble instead.  
  
Dean gave him a _See, I told you so_ smirk and asked Alexei to lead them back to the inn. Once they arrived and were seated at a table, Dean ordered a huge meal.  
  
Sam started to protest, but Dean cut him off with, “I’m hungry, you’re hungry, and you’re regrowing bone. Besides, how often do we get seafood this fresh?”  
  
Sam slumped back in his seat with a huff—but his attitude changed when the food started to arrive. Oyster soup, perch and potatoes fried in butter, perfectly broiled steaks, even a lobster big enough to split four ways... Alexei looked ready to cry at so much bounty, and Sam didn’t blame him. And just when Sam thought he couldn’t possibly eat any more, Dean ordered a blackberry pie. Sam tried some and was immediately glad he did.  
  
“You can say what you want about French food,” Dean stated, helping himself to a second slice of pie. “Nothin’ beats old-school American cooking.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam agreed as he helped himself to a piece half the size of his brother’s. “I have to agree with that.” He switched to his left hand to eat, a sure sign his arm was twinging again. “Jess would try to get me interested in ‘haute cuisine,’ as she put it, but I never really liked it very much.”  
  
“Can’t remember last time I ate so much,” Alexei murmured and pushed his dessert plate toward Alison. “Would wish for blini, but don’t have room.”  
  
Alison chuckled and kissed him.  
  
Just then, the pub’s regulars started filtering in, and Dean made his way over to the bar to introduce himself, ask questions, and accept a few beers. Sam couldn’t follow all of the conversations; either the food, the pain in his arm, or the nature of the place was fogging his mind. But it wasn’t long before Dean, plainly (to Sam’s eyes) acting more drunk than he really was, accepted an invitation to play darts.  
  
“And here we go,” Sam couldn’t stop the fond grin as he raised his beer bottle to his lips to hide the smile.  
  
Dean had just gone through the “miss easy shots” and “induce the marks to bet on the next game” stages when Sam heard a male voice with a Russian accent—not Alexei’s—say, “Excuse me, please. You are Mr. Winchester, yes?”  
  
Sam stood. “Yes, sir?”  
  
“Yuri Rozanov.” The dark-haired man shook hands with Sam. “Please forgive this interruption, but my friend Whittaker Walter wishes to speak with you immediately.”  
  
“Thank you.” Sam stepped forward and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Another time, guys. Dean, come on.”  
  
Dean shrugged him off, his movement exaggerated to keep up the illusion that he was three sheets to the wind. “ _You_ make it anovver time, Shammy. Me an’— _hic!_ —my friensh here, we got a bish... bish... we got a deal. Shook on it an’ ev’rything.” He spun back toward the target and threw his first dart straight into the bullseye. Two others joined it, then he swayed and grinned drunkenly at his brother. “Toldja....”  
  
“Okay, dead-eye, let’s go.” Sam reached for Dean again.  
  
But Dean smacked Sam’s hand away, and this time the belligerence was real when he slurred, “Dammit, Sham, quit throw’n’ off my aim!”  
  
“We need to go talk to—”  
  
“ _You_ talk to ’im!” Dean turned unsteadily to one of the other men. “Been naggin’ me all day. ’S worse’n my wife.” He punctuated that with another bullseye.  
  
The other men laughed, but Rozanov caught Sam’s arm. “We do not have time,” he murmured to Sam. “You are the one Whittaker Walter wishes to speak to.”  
  
“Fine,” Sam snarled, addressing both Dean and Rozanov, and left Dean to his hustling.  
  
At a nod from Rozanov, the Kolchins followed as Sam and Rozanov made their way up to the second floor of the inn. Sam could sense strong magic in the air that grew stronger as they went down the hall, so it was no surprise that he was battling a low-grade headache when Rozanov stopped in front of a door, gave a coded knock, and opened the door to reveal a cramped room that held several trunks, a table piled high with books, and a very sick-looking man in the bed.  
  
“C’min, c’min,” the man—Whittaker—said weakly. “ _Spasiba_ , Yuri Grigorovich.”  
  
“ _Prozhalyista_ ,” Rosanov replied and ushered Sam and the Kolchins inside.  
  
“Mr. Whittaker?” Sam asked, approaching the bed.  
  
Whittaker nodded and coughed. “So you’re Sam Winchester,” he wheezed. “Don’t look anything like I’d imagined. Guess you favor one of your foremothers more than your however-many-greats Grandfather William.”  
  
Astonished, Sam sat down on the edge of the bed. “You knew my ancestors?”  
  
Whittaker nodded again but didn’t answer until Rozanov had helped him drink some water. “I knew William and his father Henry, anyway. They were Men of Letters. You should be, too, you and your brother—you’re legacies.”  
  
Sam shook his head. “I don’t understand. We’d never heard of the Men of Letters until today. But you sound like you’ve heard of _us_.”  
  
“There are old prophecies about the Winchesters.” Whittaker sighed and coughed again. “I’m not sure anymore what I’ve read, what’s a vision, or what’s just a fever dream. And I’ve been out of contact with the outside world for nearly two hundred years now. What I do know is that you and your brother have some role to play in the Apocalypse—and I’ve heard you referred to as the Boy King of Hell.”  
  
Sam swallowed hard. “Is that why you wanted to see me?”  
  
“Partly—just… curiosity. Even if I were a hunter, there’s not a whole lot I could do about you like this.”  
  
“And the rest?”  
  
Whittaker closed his eyes for a moment before looking at Sam again. “You told Rev. Hawthorne you wanted to help me.”  
  
Sam nodded. “Yes, sir. If you could tell us what spell you used, maybe we could break it and get everyone out of this timeskip loop.”  
  
“That won’t be as easy as you think.” Whittaker looked at Rozanov, who helped him drink again. “As far as I know, the only copy of the spellbook is in the Men of Letters’ archive. Thaddeus Sinclair was in charge of moving that archive when the Redcoats got too close, but I have no idea where he moved it to or whether it’s been moved again in the centuries since. And even if you found it, I’m positive the book doesn’t cover this sort of emergency.”  
  
“What makes you so sure, Mr. Whittaker?” Alison asked, drifting closer to the bed.  
  
“It’s an Enochian spell, fueled by the power of the caster’s soul. Only a human soul or an angel’s grace has the power to bend time this way. And it was never meant to be performed twice in one _week_ , let alone twice in one _hour_. It takes the soul seven days to recover from a spell like that. Worse still, I don’t know what caused us to leap nearly two years the first time—I was trying to move the island only a week forward to make sure we missed the storm. The second time, they wouldn’t even let me think long enough to find a target.”  
  
Rozanov chuckled wryly. “Is wild magic, this place, and nobody notices. Could see Snegurochka walk down street in middle of summer and think she was tourist.”  
  
“That’s it!” exclaimed Alexei. “To do a spell in place of wild magic with no target, is… is like taking submarine too close to shore when the maps and tide charts are too old.”  
  
Sam nodded. “And that’s what’s causing the loop. The island ‘runs aground’ every time your soul runs out of ‘fuel,’ but as soon as it’s had enough time to build a partial charge—when the ‘tide’ comes in—it triggers the spell again.”  
  
Whittaker and Rozanov exchanged a look, as if the analogy had never occurred to either of them.  
  
“If that is so,” Rozanov said slowly, “we need equivalent of power-motorboat to get soul out of loop. But what is this equivalent?”  
  
Sam shook his head. “An angel would presumably be stronger than human souls, but I don’t have any idea how to summon an angel or even whether one _can_.”  
  
“If you go to mainland now,” Alexei asked, “would your friend Bobby have answer before sunrise?”  
  
“I—m-maybe. I dunno. But is the ferry even running this late, and if it is, how do I get Dean to go with me?”  
  
“I… I think… it’s a moot question,” Whittaker gasped.  
  
Sam looked at him again in horror.  
  
“Yuri… I can’t… hold it off… until dawn….”  
  
Rozanov barked something in Russian. “Shield eyes!” he repeated in English for Alison and Sam.  
  
Sam turned his head and threw his arm across his eyes a split second before Whittaker screamed and a blinding light flooded the room for a moment. The force of the spell’s activation threw Sam off the bed. He managed to land on his back so as not to reinjure his broken wrist or break his other arm, but the fall still knocked the wind out of him. Rozanov helped him up once the light had faded, but when he looked at the bed again, Whittaker was unconscious again and barely breathing.  
  
A second later, the door burst open and a wild-eyed Dean stumbled in. “What the hell was that?!” he demanded, not sounding drunk at all.  
  
Sam took a deep breath and let it out again. “Welcome to 2016.”


	4. 2006 -- Bobby and Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby's lost the boys. Help arrives from the most unexpected source. Who would have thought time-traveling lost grandfathers would be just what he needed?

Chapter 3

  
Bobby was torn. He knew he needed to get some kind of counterspell to the boys before daybreak, but if he couldn’t get through to their cell phones, it might not do any good—especially if Sam was right and Dean was going to trap them on the island. He wanted to get the next flight to Boston so he could charge out there and drag Dean back to the mainland by his collar, but without the counterspell, it wouldn’t do any good.  
  
So he did what he did best—he researched. And he read. And he cross-referenced.  
  
He had just gotten up to stretch his back and start thinking about fixing himself a belated supper when the door to the hall closet suddenly rattled. Drawing his gun, he stepped over to it and flung it open. There was nothing out of the ordinary there—until a flash of flame burned a strange sigil into the inside of the door. A second later, the doorway flared with bright light... and a tall, thin, dark-haired man fell through it and knocked Bobby to the ground.  
  
“Sorry!” the stranger exclaimed and scrambled off Bobby as quickly as he could. Then he stopped, looking at Bobby’s face as if he were searching for something. “Y-you’re not Johnny. You can’t be. Who are you?”  
  
“Who are _you?_ ” Bobby countered.  
  
“My name is Henry Winchester. I’m looking for my son John.”  
  
“Winchester died six months ago.”  
  
The stranger’s eyes went wide, and he lost what little color was in his cheeks. “No... no, no, it can’t be.... Please, who are you? You must be related to me somehow.”  
  
“Singer. Bobby Singer.”  
  
“Singer.” Winchester—if that was his real name—shook his head. “I don’t know the name. Do I have any grandchildren here, by any chance?”  
  
He nodded. “Two boys. I’ve....” he broke off, catching himself about to blurt it right out, but then he decided what the hell. If he caused trouble, he could take care of the stranger. “I’ve adopted them since their daddy died.”  
  
Winchester took a ragged breath and nodded. “I need to speak with them immediately.”  
  
“They’re in Boston.”  
  
Winchester frowned and put a hand to his head, allowing Bobby to see a fresh cut on his wrist. “This doesn’t make sense. The spell should have taken me directly to blood kin.”  
  
Just then, Bobby spotted a wad of fabric in a back corner of the closet. On inspection, it turned out to be one of Sam’s shirts—with Dean’s blood on it.  
  
“It ain’t _your_ spell that’s gone wrong,” Bobby said, his heart sinking.  
  
Winchester somehow turned a whiter shade of pale. “What do you mean?”  
  
“The boys ain’t in Boston proper. They’re on Gloucester Island.”  
  
Winchester’s face went even whiter. “ _Glou_ —”  
  
He was cut off by another rumble from the closet.  
  
“Oh, no,” he whispered, looking ready to faint.  
  
Bobby slammed the door shut.  
  
“That won’t—”  
  
“Then _lock it_ , ya idjit!”  
  
“Lo....” Winchester shook his head and drew a sigil on the trembling door. “Use your blood, mine cast the first one, another’s must lock it!”  
  
Bobby had his knife out and his palm sliced in two seconds. “What do I do?”  
  
“Press your hand to the sigil. It will tingle and there’ll be a tug, it’s okay!”  
  
Bobby slammed his hand against the sigil. He felt considerably more than a tingle and a tug—an electric shock ran up his arm, and the “tug” nearly pulled him off his feet—but he held his ground. The sigil flared and went dark. A faint bellow of rage was heard, then all went quiet.  
  
“Dear Lord,” Winchester murmured and braced himself on the hall table. “Thank you, Mr. Singer. Could I trouble you... for directions... to your bathroom?”  
  
“Down the hall... to the left.”  
  
Winchester nodded, bolted down the hall to the bathroom, and threw up noisily.  
  
Bobby poured him a glass of water directly from the holy water jug and met him at the bathroom door with it. Winchester drank it straight without even looking.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said when he’d apparently gotten his stomach wrestled back behind his belt. “It’s just that the adventures I prefer are of a more literary nature.”  
  
“You talk like you swallowed a dictionary.”  
  
Winchester huffed a laugh and leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. “What else do you expect from a Man of Letters?”  
  
“Impossible.”  
  
“What is?”  
  
“The Men of Letters are all dead.” Bobby huffed. “If they ever existed at all.”  
  
Winchester’s eyes popped open. “What?! No—no, surely _somebody_ survived! And even if not, I should have... I should have raised John in the ways of the Letters, unless... unless I... I don’t make it back from this time.”  
  
“You know about Gloucester.”  
  
“Yes. My grandfather told me that _his_ grandfather told _him_ never to go out there. A Man of Letters was lost when the island disappeared.”  
  
“He cast a spell to move the island and now they’re stuck. The island’s there now and they’ve got till dawn to find and break the spell. Do you know the spell?”  
  
“No, but... this might help somehow.” Winchester pulled a brass box, the size of a pack of cigarettes, out of his coat pocket. It was covered in wards and an odd six-pointed star that matched the one on his tie tack.  
  
“A puzzle box?” Bobby identified by sight, putting the lie to his rough appearance.  
  
Winchester turned it over in his hand and shook his head. “I suppose so. I haven’t had time to look at it.”  
  
Bobby took it and turned it over and over in his hands. “Ah,” he said, popping it open.  
  
Winchester frowned in confusion as Bobby lifted off the front panel. “A key? I wonder what it opens.”  
  
“There’s got to be more here than just a key. Look it over.”  
  
“I’m... I’m sorry, I’m still pretty lightheaded. All I recognize at a glance is the Aquarian Star—it’s the symbol of the Men of Letters, a sign of great power and magic. They say it stood at the gates of Atlantis itself.”  
  
Bobby snorted. “Get something to drink.” He took the box and began to study it all over.  
  
As he took it to his desk, Winchester went into the kitchen and helped himself to a glass of orange juice. “I know we’re short of time,” he said as he came back into the study, “but... well, where are we, first of all? Not Boston, obviously.”  
  
“Sioux Falls,” Bobby absently replied, absorbed in the search.  
  
“Sioux Falls,” Henry echoed. “So we’re about nine hours from Normal—unless you happen to have a flying car?”  
  
Bobby glared at him pointedly, then went back to his perusal.  
  
Winchester chewed on his lip for a moment. “Mr. Singer... what’s the time zone difference between here and Boston?”  
  
“We’re on Central Time, an’ it don’t matter. We ain’t got time to run off to Illinois.”  
  
“Gloucester is on Atlantic time—two hours ahead of Central, since it was not there when the zones were established. That means.... it’s only an hour till dark.”  
  
Bobby looked up again, annoyed. “What’s your point?”  
  
“If they’re still there in an hour...”  
  
“Dean said he’d call when they got back to the mainland. Nothin’ we can do about it from here. ’Sides,” Bobby added under his breath, “I’m worried enough for both of us.”  
  
Winchester helped him study the key box. They worked in silence for an hour.  
  
Then two.  
  
Then three.  
  
The phone never rang.  
  
“Mr. Singer...” Winchester finally began.  
  
“Don’t say it,” Bobby interrupted.  
  
“But I think we —”  
  
“Shut up,” Bobby snarled.  
  
Winchester shut up for a moment, then whispered, “I’m sorry. Maybe you should just direct me to a hoodoo shop.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“So I can go back to 1958 and stop whatever’s put my family on this course. I really ought to wait a week for my soul to recharge, but....”  
  
“No. This ain’t on you.”  
  
“How can it not be? Raising John in the ways of the Letters was my responsibility. If coming here caused me to fail in that—if nobody warned my grandsons that Gloucester Island was too dangerous even for hunters—”  
  
“Things happened how they happened. John wouldn’t have been a good Letter man—he’s not natured for it.”  
  
Winchester frowned in confusion. “John? _My_ John? But... we’re _legacies_. Yes, John would rather play baseball and football than attend to his studies, at least when the weather was good, but... surely he’d have grown out of that at some point.”  
  
“Nope. He was the type to hit first and think years later.”  
  
“I don’t understand. Millie would have raised him better than that.”  
  
“He never talked about either of you.”  
  
Winchester sighed miserably. “He must have been so angry that I never came home. Doesn’t that prove my point, though? I’ve got to go back and fix all this!”  
  
“Suppose you make things worse? Suppose whatever followed you kills you anyway?”  
  
“But... then... what _do_ I do?”  
  
Bobby met his eyes. “Help me find that spell and save our family.”  
  
Winchester swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay. But I don’t think the box itself holds the answer. It must be something to do with the key. Somebody _must_ have survived Abaddon’s attack on the Letters in Normal, or... or if they didn’t, there must be some clue they left somewhere in the event of such an emergency.”  
  
“I have a feeling if we solve this....” Bobby held up the key. “We’ll be given a head start on breaking the curse on Gloucester and rescuing our boys.”  
  
“But we’ll never make it to Normal before dawn on Gloucester.” Winchester clutched his head. “If only there were some way to find the information we need from here....”  
  
Bobby grinned. “Done.”  
  
Winchester looked up, startled. “What?”  
  
Bobby fired up his computer and sat down. “Normal—what state?”  
  
“Illinois. It was August 12, 1958. Our chapter house was at 242 Gaines Street, and officially it was a nightclub.”  
  
A few seconds later, Bobby said “And it was destroyed by fire.”  
  
Winchester gasped.  
  
Bobby slid to the side and let him see the clipping for himself.  
  
“No survivors,” Winchester murmured as he read. “Those confirmed dead....” He paused, then slapped the table. “I knew it.” He pointed to one name in the list.  
  
Bobby read it—and blinked. “Albert _Magnus?!_ As in....”  
  
“Albertus Magnus, yes. We used that as a standard alias when working undercover. So someone did survive.”  
  
Bobby opened a new tab, pulled up Find a Grave, and said, “Give me the names.”  
  
Winchester rattled off the list of names. Bobby typed each in and an image came up of the gravestones. Three of the four bore the Aquarian Star, but Larry Ganem’s was decorated with an elaborate cross sigil.  
  
“Think I’ve seen that before,” Bobby murmured. “Looks like...”  
  
“The Haitian symbol for speaking with the dead,” Winchester confirmed. “It’s a message—but we won’t know what it means until someone exhumes the grave.” He looked at Bobby, frowning. “And how do we get that to happen?”  
  
Bobby drummed his fingers on the table as he thought through where all of his contacts were. “I think I know _one_ person who could get there tonight. He’s a goober, but he _should_ be able to dig up a grave without gettin’ himself killed.”  
  
“Call him?”  
  
“Right.” Bobby pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Garth? You still in Peoria?”  
  
“Gettin’ ready to leave tonight,” Garth answered. “Why?”  
  
“Need you to check out a grave for me in Normal. It’s _not_ a salt-n-burn—once you open the coffin, I need you to call me and tell me what you see.”  
  
After a moment of silence, Garth said, “It will be a bit to get there, but I’m on it.”  
  
“I need you there in an hour, boy. Got a problem we gotta solve before daybreak.”  
  
“I’m on it,” he said again, hanging up.  
  
Bobby sighed and looked at Winchester. “In the meantime, I could do with some food. How ’bout you?”  
  
“I’ll try.”  
  
Bobby nodded and headed to the kitchen. He’d had the foresight to brown and freeze a large batch of hamburger meat a rancher had brought him to pay for some salvaged truck parts, so he pulled one box of frozen meat out to turn into quick beef stroganoff.  
  
Fifty minutes passed and the phone went off. The first words out of Garth’s mouth were, “No salt and burn, right?”  
  
“Right,” Bobby replied. “Whatcha got?”  
  
“An old skeleton. Older than the ’50s. Got dog tags round its neck—from the early 20th century. Like World War I early.”  
  
“What’s the name on the dog tags?”  
  
He rattled it off, and Bobby worked on the computer for a long moment.  
  
“Son of a gun. There’s a man by that name living in Lebanon, Kansas.”  
  
Garth asked, “So I can fill it in and let this guy go back to his rest? I got a wooden plank for a new coffin roof for him.”  
  
“Yeah, close it up. Thanks, Garth.”  
  
“Welcome, Bob.” He hung up.  
  
“Lebanon,” Winchester murmured. “Geographic center of the US. Why would Larry be there?”  
  
“One way to find out.” Bobby reached for his notepad.  
  
“We’ll never make it by dawn Atlantic time—it’s six hours to Lebanon, at least....”  
  
“May not have to.” Bobby finished writing down the phone number and pushed the notepad toward Winchester, then pointed to his phone bank. “Use the FBI line.”  
  
Winchester ducked his head, much like Dean would when he was embarrassed. “Sorry. Guess supper didn’t clear my head nearly enough.”  
  
“After the time you’ve just had? I’m not surprised. Make the call.”  
  
Winchester nodded, picked up the phone, and stared at the touch-tone pad for a moment before dialing. “Meredith?” he said after a moment. “It’s Henry Winch—Meredith?! Stop—stop screaming, please—”  
  
Bobby took the phone from his hand and barked into it, “Mrs. Ganem! That is quite enough!” He listened a moment, then said, “No, he is not a ghost. And this Abaddon has been taken care of. Put your husband on, please.” He handed it back to Henry and then shook his head and pressed a button. “There. Now we can both hear.”  
  
_Thank you_ , Winchester mouthed as they waited for Ganem to come to the phone.  
  
“Winchester?” came a voice that Henry had heard only hours before, relative time.  
  
Winchester visibly relaxed. “Hi, Larry.”  
  
“The plan worked, then. You escaped unharmed?”  
  
“Unharmed, yes, but pretty shaken by what I’ve found here in the future. My grandsons are investigating Gloucester Island.”  
  
“Forget that, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but that box in your pocket. Do you still have it?”  
  
Winchester and Bobby exchanged a frown, but Winchester answered, “Yes, it’s right here.”  
  
“Good. If you can get it open, there is a set of co-ordinates in there. Take the box there, open it with the key inside, then throw the key in and walk away.”  
  
“What?! Why?!”  
  
“Abaddon must _not_ get her hands on it, nor must her superiors. This is the only way to keep the things inside out of their hands. Do it, Winchester! Do it now!”  
  
There was scuffling and shouting, but then Meredith came on. “I’m sorry, H-Henry.”  
  
“So am I,” Winchester admitted, “and I’m horribly confused. What does the key open? And what’s wrong with Larry?”  
  
“He claims it opens a treasure trove of knowledge. And... well, he’s not exactly... sane.”  
  
Winchester sighed. “I suppose living under a dead man’s name for half a century will do that to you.”  
  
“He was blinded in the attack, and all he can talk about is that Abaddon is returning when you do and she will kill everyone with that information and her superiors—yellow-eyed demons he calls Princes of Hell—will do the same.”  
  
Bobby’s eyes narrowed. So the demon John had been hunting, the one that had killed Mary, was a Prince of Hell? That would have been useful information to have had _twenty years ago_.  
  
Winchester, however, was focused on reassuring Mrs. Ganem. “We’ve stopped Abaddon. She’s locked away between dimensions—she can’t hurt anyone anymore.”  
  
“BULL—” and the rest of the swear was just as loud. Clearly Larry was inconvincible.  
  
Winchester sighed again and rubbed at his forehead—that was a Sam move that meant an oncoming headache, and Bobby hoped it didn’t herald one of the visions that had been plaguing Sam for the last year. “Look, I’d... I’d better let you guys go. Again, I’m sorry for calling so late.”  
  
Meredith whispered, “Is she truly not a threat any more?”  
  
“Truly,” Bobby and Winchester chorused.  
  
“Then good luck. I’ll... handle Larry.” And she hung up.  
  
Winchester blew the air out of his cheeks and slumped back in his chair. “No wonder he never went back to teach John.”  
  
“Yeah, looks like that attack messed him up.” Bobby went to his library and pulled down a heavy book.  
  
Winchester watched him, confused. “What are you looking for?”  
  
“Information. Ah, here we are. Princes of Hell, the oldest of the demons bar Lilith. Four of them, each one corresponding to one of the ancient elements. Ramiel with water, Dagon air, Asmodeus the earth and....” He looked up, his eyes hard. “Azazel controlling fire.”  
  
“What’s so significant about Azazel?”  
  
“The demon that attacked your son and grandchildren and killed your daughter in law? He was a fire demon with jaundice-yellow eyes.”  
  
Winchester hissed. “Larry was so worried about Abaddon that it blinded him to the real threat.”  
  
“Which is Azazel. Although if we hadn’t neutralized her, Abaddon would have been a _huge_ threat. Then we would have had _two_ of them. Now we just have the one.”  
  
“One is enough.” Winchester ran a hand over his nose and mouth. “So now what do we do?”  
  
Bobby looked up at him with a feral grin. “Let’s get that box open.”  
  



	5. 2006-2012 -- Plans and Plots and Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ones left behind find out the master plan --and it's horrific. With Dean gone, a second Righteous Man must be found, and when he is, several players come onto the board and the threads begin to draw together.

  


Chapter 4

  
They had failed.  
  
That was the topic of conversation for the entire drive to the co-ordinates point: something just outside of Lebanon, Kansas. Both grandfather and surrogate father were upset that the expected phone call never came, which told them they would not see the brothers again until 2016.  
  
In the meantime, Henry grew to realize that Bobby was a pragmatist. There was nothing they could do about their missing children, so they would focus on what they could. And that was whatever was waiting for them in Lebanon. And once he had learned how to operate the strange controls of 1980s cars, Henry was able to take over the task of driving when Bobby flagged, and they managed to make the drive pretty much straight through.  
  
They arrived at the coordinates to find concrete steps leading down to an unassuming brick archway surrounding a steel door set in the side of a hill below an abandoned power plant.  
  
“Doesn’t look very impressive,” Bobby said.  
  
“I’m sure that’s the whole idea,” Henry replied and led the way down to the door, which unlocked and opened easily.  
  
They found a light switch and turned it on. The hallway they were in led out to a balcony that overlooked a pre-war command center and—joy of joys!—a gorgeous library.  
  
“Well, this is it,” Bobby said firmly. When Henry looked at him, he swung out his hand. “Somewhere in here is the key to defeating Azazel’s plan and knowing what it is.”  
  
“And also the key to getting our boys off Gloucester Island, I hope,” Henry agreed. “Even if the spell can’t be broken, at least we can try to convince Dean that Sam’s no longer in danger.”  
  
Bobby rubbed his hands together. “Right. Let’s get started!”  
  
And so began a two-year trawl through the archives in what turned out to be a very secure bunker. Bobby eventually sold his salvage yard and moved his phone bank to the bunker; he still took the occasional hunt and accepted research requests from other hunters, but mostly, he was as focused on finding the information they needed as Henry was. His friends Rufus and Ellen took up the slack of dispatching hunters to work cases around the country—and reported that, at least for the first year, demonic activity had suddenly dropped sharply.  
  
What they found didn’t completely explain Azazel’s plan, but it did explain a good deal of it. There were prophecies in the archives stating that the Winchester family had some part to play, for good or ill, in the Apocalypse—and Azazel was evidently hoping to use Sam, at least, to release Lucifer and trigger a final fight against Michael to end the world. But it was equally evident that Azazel was hedging his bets, given what John and the boys had already found about other children who were in the same boat Sam was.  
  
They began to track those children, leading to Cold Oak, South Dakota, and a bunch of them gathered for a prizefight with superpowers, as Bobby crudely put it. They managed to save some of the children—and then Azazel showed up.  
  
By this time, Ellen had informed them, the whole supernatural world seemed to think that Azazel himself had possession of the only weapon capable of killing him. But Henry had managed to track down the Spear of Longinus—no thanks to Cuthbert Sinclair, whom Bobby had had to kill for trying to double-cross them—and learned how to wield it.  
  
Azazel was quite surprised to find his monologue interrupted by a “glorified librarian” shoving a spear through his gut. He was even more surprised to find himself very quickly dying.  
  
“Is that it?” asked Andy Gallagher, one of the kids who’d actually met Sam and Dean. “Is it over?”  
  
“He’s dead,” Bobby said. “He won’t be bothering you kids again.”  
  
Once they’d delivered the kids to the nearest town, however, Henry looked at Bobby. “That might be the end of Azazel, but you know as well as I do that it’s not the end of his schemes. He was acting on Lucifer’s own orders. Somehow Hell will find a way to regroup between now and 2016, I’m sure.”  
  
“Then we’d better do everything we can to get ready, hadn’t we?” Bobby grinned at him.  
  
Henry grinned back. He’d never expected to find such a good friend and partner in a _hunter_ , of all people... but by now, he could easily see why John had befriended Bobby and why Bobby had unofficially adopted John’s sons. Beneath that gruff, rough exterior were a warm heart and a lively mind.  
  
Seeing him balance both worlds had led Henry to becoming more physically fit as well—best the monsters look at him and see an unassuming weak individual whose interests were clearly more cerebral. That way they would underestimate him and be blindsided when he knew how to use a gun or a spell or a charmed lance. The pair made a good team.  
  
And so they worked and researched together, always searching for the key to undoing both Hell’s plans and the curse on Gloucester Island—until one day in December of 2012, when one of Bobby’s phones suddenly rang.  
  
Bobby frowned and answered it. “Willis, FBI.”  
  
“Dammit, Singer,” returned a voice he thought he’d never hear again, “where the hell are you, and where the _hell_ are my boys?!”  
  
“You sound remarkably spry for a dead man.”  
  
John huffed noisily into the receiver. “Tell me about it. Woke up in a crater about a mile from that hospital where I died. Took me all day to hitchhike to Harvelle’s, and then Jo slugged me in the face, Ellen and Ash won’t talk to me except to say you’re not in Sioux Falls, and the boys’ phones go straight to voice mail. What the hell’s goin’ on?”  
  
Henry held up a note and Bobby read it and nodded, asking, “Your daddy gave you a music box when you were little. What did it play?”  
  
“‘As Time Goes By,’” John replied, sounding confused. “I told you that one time when the boys were little—you asked me why Dean was singing ‘Hey, Jude’ to Sammy, and I’d had just enough whiskey to tell you about Mary singing it to him and Pops giving me that music box to play for a lullaby when I started having nightmares after we saw _Casablanca_ at the drive-in.”  
  
“Where are you, Jarhead?”  
  
“I’m... I’m still at Harvelle’s. Ellen hasn’t run me off with a shotgun yet, although she sure looks like she wants to.”  
  
“Put her on.” When he heard her grumpy tone, he asked, “Passed all the tests?”  
  
“All the standard ones,” Ellen admitted grudgingly. “He tell you about the spirit that’s followin’ him, though?”  
“Not yet. Tell me.”  
  
“Doesn’t seem to be a demon—no visible form we can see. All we can hear is a loud whine, and it blew out the lights in the parking lot. Ash and Joanna Beth are out fixing them now. We’re damn lucky we weren’t open yet.”  
  
“Keep him there. We’ll be there in two hours.”  
  
He could almost see her shake her head. “Six years he’s been gone—six years the boys have been gone—and now....”  
  
“And he’ll be gone again in two and a half hours. Hang in there, Ellen.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll try. Thanks, Bobby.” And Ellen hung up.  
  
Henry sighed and sank back into the chair in the War Room, glancing at the glowing dot on the map table. “Well, now we know what pinged that.”  
  
Bobby hummed in agreement. “Still a lot of unanswered questions, though. Good thing Rufus was free to check it out—too bad he missed John, but at least we know where John is now.”  
  
Henry stood up. “I’ll go warm up the truck.”  
  
Bobby nodded. “Thanks. I’ll check in with Rufus.”  
  
Henry nodded. Once in the truck he found himself quietly hyperventilating over the steering wheel. Johnny was _alive_.... HOW?  
  
Mercifully, it was only a few minutes before Bobby joined him. “Welp, John wasn’t kiddin’ when he said he woke up in a crater,” Bobby reported. “Rufus said the area where the boys burned John looked like a bomb had gone off. EMF off the scale. The one thing we can be sure _didn’t_ happen is someone makin’ a deal—the boys couldn’t have, we didn’t, an’ nobody else woulda bothered.”  
  
“That’s troubling,” Henry said, scooting over so Bobby could drive. “That suggests something powerful and potentially malicious.”  
  
“Exactly.” Bobby put the truck in gear and drove off. “And there’s whatever followed John to the Roadhouse. John don’t sound like he has answers, or at least not answers he’s willin’ to share, so I called a friend o’ mine to meet us there. She’s a psychic, should be able to tell us what this thing is.”  
  
Henry nodded. “My fellow Letters used to interrogate psychics—I know, I know,” he said, interrupting Bobby’s open mouth. “We’ve had this discussion before. I can’t believe I followed them so blindly.”  
  
Bobby huffed. “Well, Pamela’s the real deal. So don’t you start in on her.”  
  
“If I do, I trust you’ll stop me.”  
  
“If I don’t, Ellen will. Truth is, though... I’m more worried about how _John’s_ gonna react to seein’ _you_.”  
  
Henry chuckled. “Honestly, that never crossed my mind.”  
  
“Ain’t no laughin’ matter, Henry. He never forgave you for disappearin’ like that.”  
  
Henry sobered instantly. “He didn’t....” He leaned back into the headrest and closed his eyes as they rolled on down the road. What else could be said after that?  
  
Two hours later, the truck pulled into the muddy parking lot of Harvelle’s Roadhouse. They were met there not only by Rufus but also by a black-haired, green-eyed woman who greeted Bobby with a hug and then gave Henry a grinning once-over. “Well, well,” she said. “Never met a time traveler before. Nice to meet you, Henry. Name’s Pamela Barnes.” And she offered her hand.  
  
He took it and returned her smile. “The pleasure’s mine. He’s inside, then?”  
  
“We just got here,” said Rufus.  
  
“In the basement,” said Pamela. “Partly because Ellen doesn’t want the seance scaring the regular customers and blowing out the lights, partly because she’s still mad at John—more for what his death did to his sons than for his role in Bill’s death.”  
  
Rufus stared. “How the hell did you know about Bill?”  
  
She smirked, but it was Bobby who said to Henry, “Told you she was the real deal.”  
  
Henry laughed; he couldn’t help it. He followed them to the basement.  
  
And there, pacing nervously, was a man Henry recognized only from the one photograph Bobby had of John and his boys—tall, muscular, dark hair and beard turning grey in places, face hardened and eyes haunted by the life he’d led. Was this really the same boy Henry had last said good night to all those years ago?  
  
Until his dying day, Henry would always wonder why what came out of his mouth was, “My G-d, you look just like your grandfather.”  
  
John froze for a moment, then spun wide-eyed to face him. “POPS?!”  
  
He smiled. “Hello, Johnny. It’s been while.” He wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  
  
Except being spun to the ground by a right hook .... wasn’t quite it.  
  
“ _Hey_.” Pamela stepped between them. “It wasn’t his fault, John—he was being chased by a Knight of Hell. That’s a better excuse than you had for the times you left your boys alone for weeks on end, to say nothing of the way you failed to say goodbye to them.”  
  
Henry was suddenly very glad Bobby had told him much of this. Otherwise, he might well he decked his own son just on principle.  
  
John was seething. “Look, lady—”  
  
“Did you _know_ that your last words to Dean would be instructions to kill Sam if he couldn’t save him?” Pamela interrupted. “Did you even once think about what that would do to Dean?”  
  
“Don’t tell me how to handle my sons!” John roared.  
  
“Why? Because I don’t know what it’s like to have a son who’s been tainted by demon blood?”  
  
The room went dead silent.  
  
“You’re afraid,” Pamela pressed as Bobby helped Henry up, presumably to keep both of them from attacking John with more than words. “You love your sons, but you don’t know what to do with the information you’ve tortured out of those demons, even less now that you’ve done it Downstairs. You’re afraid Sam’s going to turn into a monster, actually _become_ the Boy King of Hell—and you’re afraid you won’t have it in you to stop him. But you never considered that treating him like a monster might push him down that path more effectively than anything else ever could.”  
  
“Don’t you dare lecture me,” John snarled, but his hands were shaking.  
  
She crossed her arms and fixed him with a glare that could have frozen a sun. “I’m merely stating an uncomfortable truth. You’re the one taking it as a lecture.”  
  
“Don’t have to worry about the boys for a few more years yet, anyway,” Rufus chimed in. “Dean took your instructions to heart and found a way to keep Sam as safe as can be. They’re on Gloucester Island.”  
  
There was a shocked silence, then John—there was no other word for it— _erupted_. He yelled and screamed until Pamela walked right over to him and slapped him so hard he ended up sitting in a chair.  
  
“We can discuss your sons later, John,” she said firmly. “Right now, we’ve got a bigger problem: figuring out why you’re back and what this spirit that’s following you is and what it wants. Show us your shoulder.”  
  
John called her a nasty name, but he tugged his shirt off enough for them to all see the handprint seared into his shoulder like a horrible burn.  
  
“You can’t hurt me with the truth,” she shot back and motioned for everyone else to take seats around the table Ellen had set up for them while she set up for the seance.  
  
At last, all was ready. They held hands and Pamela pressed her palm to the palm of the burn.  
  
“I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle,” she repeated several times until she broke off, listening to something. “Castiel?” she asked, apparently repeating the spirit’s name. “No, sorry, I don’t scare easily. I invoke, conjure, and command you—”  
  
“Wait,” Henry interrupted. “Let me try something else.”  
  
Pamela fell silent.  
  
Henry closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Blessed Castiel, Angel of Thursday, hear our prayer.”  
  
Pamela took a sharp breath. “... it says... it’s listening.”  
  
“We earnestly desire to speak with thee, but we are mortal and cannot bear the presence of the holy angels unaided. We beseech thee therefore to appear unto us in a guise our eyes may see and speak unto us with a voice our ears may hear.”  
  
Her eyes snapped open. “For this? Only for this?” After a pause, she sighed. “All right.” She barked out a laugh. “Oh, you’re pedantic. Yes, then.”  
  
And the flames on the candles jumped high. When they went down, Pamela... was different. Henry, who was sitting next to her, could sense power in her presence and in her touch that hadn’t been there before, even before her head turned and her wide, unblinking green eyes stared into his soul.  
  
“Castiel?” he gasped.  
  
“I am Castiel.” Pamela’s voice was lower than normal. “This woman is not my true vessel, and thus I cannot remain with her long. Why must you speak with me?”  
  
“Why are you following my son?”  
  
“I gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. In return, we expect him to perform tasks for us.”  
  
“Who’s ‘we’?” Bobby asked. “An’ why resurrect John specifically?”  
  
“I was told to.” Pointedly, there was no answer to the first question.  
  
Henry decided to press his luck. “Is this to do with the Apocalypse?”  
  
The angel blinked. “I was told to raise this mortal from Hell, as he is a Righteous Man.”  
  
Henry’s blood went cold. “There was something in the library,” he murmured. “Something about when a Righteous Man sheds blood in Hell....”  
  
“I found him beside the rack,” Castiel’s voice was suddenly tight.  
  
“I’m _right here_ ,” John growled, but his face had gone pale.  
  
Henry ignored him. “What do your superiors want John to do?”  
  
“Stop Lilith,” answered Castiel.  
  
Henry felt the blood drain from his own face. “But... isn’t Lilith still confined to the Pit of Hell?”  
  
A blink. “... we were told she was active. But she... seems to be below.”  
  
“So how am I supposed to stop her if she isn’t even topside?” John asked, frowning.  
  
“I was told... I am confused.”  
  
Rufus asked something in Hebrew; Henry didn’t quite catch it, but he thought it was something like, “What _were_ you told?”  
  
Castiel answered in English, “Lilith had escaped when the Hell Gate was opened and now she wants to break the 66 seals and we have to stop her.”  
  
Bobby, Henry, and Rufus all looked at each other and chorused, “ _What_ Hell Gate?”  
  
“The Hell Gate... that was opened by the winner of Azazel’s Death Match.” Castiel frowned.  
  
Bobby shook his head. “We put a stop to that. Nobody won.”  
  
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Henry, thinking so hard his eyes slid shut. “Are you talking about the Devil’s Gate built by Samuel Colt somewhere in southern Wyoming?” He opened his eyes a crack.  
  
The angel nodded Pamela’s head.  
  
“The one that’s said to open only when the barrel of Colt’s demon-killing gun is inserted in the lock?”  
  
Another nod, but this time the eyes —now an unearthly blue—began to widen.  
  
“Azazel had that gun on him when I killed him last year. I put it in a secure vault myself. No other demon could have gotten to it since then.”  
  
“But... that would mean I had been... lied to.”  
  
“Looks that way, don’t it?” Bobby agreed.  
  
“Impossible. My superiors would not....”  
  
“You sure about that?” Rufus asked.  
  
“I....” The angel clearly didn’t know how to respond.  
  
Henry leaned forward. “John’s been dead for six years, Castiel. Why have you resurrected him now?”  
  
“It took us this long to battle through Hell.” Pamela’s head shook. “Though I do not understand why we went the long way ’round.”  
  
“You mean you coulda gotten to me sooner?!” John exploded. “I was in Hell for _seven centuries_ because you took the scenic route?!!”  
  
“If we could have gone in the other way, we might have gotten to you before you were off of the rack.”  
  
John swore bitterly.  
  
But a niggling thought occurred to Henry. “Castiel... when did you _start_ fighting your way into Hell?”  
  
Pamela’s eyebrows drew together. “We do not perceive time as you do, but… I believe… it was July of last year.”  
  
“We killed Azazel last May.”  
  
John swore again.  
  
Castiel shook Pamela’s head. “I must go now. I will find out what I can and return when I am able. Please shield your eyes.”  
  
Henry turned his head, screwed his eyes shut, and put an arm over them just to be safe. He was still aware of the blinding flash that heralded Castiel’s departure and Pamela’s groan as she came back to herself.  
  
“You all right, Pamela?” Bobby asked as Henry turned back to look at her again.  
  
“No,” Pamela rasped. “Whiskey….”  
  
Rufus passed her his flask, and she drank from it gratefully. Once she’d downed a couple of large swigs, she uttered a very unladylike phrase.  
  
“Need somethin’ more?” Bobby pressed.  
  
“Just time.” Pamela drank again. “I don’t know what that’s like for the average vessel, but for me it was like going Dr. Strangelove on a comet, except I was holding on by my fingernails.”  
  
Then Henry noticed that John wasn’t at the table anymore. He was standing several paces away with his back to the table, shoulders hunched and arms crossed like he was trying to fold in on himself.  
  
“Johnny?” Henry asked, getting up and going to him. “What is it, son?”  
  
It was a moment before John spoke, without looking at Henry. “Time’s different in Hell. Near as I can figure, a month up here is ten years down there.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“I was down there… almost eight hundred years. But after the first… year, maybe, where they were torturing me like it was an initiation rite, I spent the next… I dunno… seven hundred, thereabout, in a pretty good replica of the Hanoi Hilton. They messed with my head a lot, but it wasn’t… wasn’t _torture_ , y’know? I even thought once I was gonna be able to make a break for it, but they changed the guard schedule, and then they moved me to a lower circle.” John ran a hand over his mouth. “And then… about fifty years ago, Hell time, everything changed. There was this… this demon called Alistair, and he had me put on the rack and… Pops, there just aren’t words.”  
  
Henry rubbed John’s shoulder. “You don’t have to describe it.”  
  
“He kept saying he’d stop if I’d agree to torture somebody else. I… I held out as long as I could… t-twenty years, I think it was… but in the end….”  
  
“Everyone breaks, John. And you didn’t have the option of dying.”  
  
John finally turned to him, unshed tears glittering in the candlelight. “Pops, don’t you get it? Fifty years ago in Hell was July of _this year_.”  
  
“So it ain’t just Hell that’s got it in for your boys,” Bobby concluded.  
  
John frowned. “What?”  
  
“It seems everything changed when the boys went to Gloucester Island,” Henry stated and summarized the past six years for John, who went from swearing in English to swearing in Vietnamese. “So since we scuppered Azazel’s Plan B,” Henry concluded, “it appears you’re somehow at the center of Plan C—although as long as it’s taken them to regroup each time, there may have been other plans in between that failed before we even found out about them.”  
  
John swore again, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.  
  
“Hey,” Bobby said. “Where’s the Jarhead fighter?”  
  
“What’s left to fight for?” John asked miserably as Henry steered him back to the table. “Mary’s avenged, but I’ve lost the boys. Never believed in angels, but now I’ve met one, and _his_ side’s as much against us as Hell is. Whatever I’m supposed to stop Lilith from doing, I don’t see the odds of success being that good, given that the angels are likely to be the ones to bust Lilith out in the first place. I... I just....”  
  
“You haven’t lost the boys, Johnny,” Henry said. “They’re just temporarily misplaced.”  
  
John laughed, but it rang hollow. “Temporarily misplaced. Right. Just like you were.”  
  
“With a huge difference,” his father grinned. “We know when they’re coming back.”  
  
John told him what he could do with himself—and Bobby reached over and slapped John upside the head. Hard.  
  
“What the _hell_ , Singer!” John erupted.  
  
“I have had it to _here_ with you bein’ a damn suicidal idjit,” Bobby roared back. “Your daddy’s a good man. He don’t deserve to be cussed at and slugged, ’specially just for tellin’ you the truth. Now, are you gonna shut up, suit up, an’ help us solve this, or do we have to lock you up ‘til you get your head straight?”  
  
“Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it,” John grumbled.  
  
Bobby smacked him again.  
  
“Stop that!”  
  
“You don’t think you deserve to be alive,” said Pamela, her voice still hoarse. “But you are alive, John. Get used to it.”  
  
Looking for a way to break the stalemate, Henry quickly went to the cabinet where Ellen kept her herbs. Once he’d found what he needed, he went back to the table, tapped John on the shoulder, recited an Enochian spell as John turned, and blew a handful of chamomile into John’s face. John’s eyes instantly rolled back in his head, and Bobby caught him before he could fall out of his chair.  
  
“Nice,” said Rufus.  
  
“Let’s get him home,” Henry said. “Thank you, all, for your hospitality. When we know what’s going on, we’ll keep you apprised.”  
  
Pamela murmured a farewell, but Rufus helped Bobby carry John up the stairs and out to the truck.  
  
“Thanks, Turner,” said Bobby. “I owe you a hundred.”  
  
“Hell, Bob, I quit countin’ how many you owe me years ago.” Rufus smiled and slugged Bobby on the shoulder. “Let me know how everything shakes out. I’ll keep tryin’ to find out what I can on my end.”  
  
“Will do,” Bobby replied and shook Rufus’ hand.  
  
Rufus then shook Henry’s hand and went off to his own truck while Henry and Bobby climbed into theirs and left. John slept all the way back to the bunker and through their manhandling him inside and into a bed—in fact, he didn’t wake until the next morning, when Bobby and Henry were fixing breakfast.  
  
Bobby shoved a cup of coffee under the startled hunter’s nose.  
  
“Good morning, son,” said Henry, looking away from the skillet full of bacon only briefly. “I’d apologize for knocking you out, but since you seemed to be stuck in gloom-or-grouch mode, it seemed the only thing to do was to shut you down and let you restart after a good night’s rest.”  
  
“Wh... Where are we?” John asked.  
  
“This is a bunker, somewhere in Kansas, belonging to the Men of Letters. It’s warded against everything imaginable. You’ll be safe here.”  
  
“Until they catch up with me.”  
  
“Shut up and eat your breakfast, idjit,” Bobby grumbled.  
  
Henry sighed. “When you’re at war for so long, it becomes your default mindset.”  
  
“They _could_ ,” John insisted.  
  
“They’d have to find you first,” said Bobby.  
  
“You think they can’t read minds?”  
  
“Why do you think we didn’t tell you the exact location?”  
  
John blinked.  
  
“I checked the records relating to the bunker’s construction when we got back last night,” Henry stated, transferring the last of the bacon to a paper towel to drain. “The warding does prevent anything, even angels, from entering unless we open the door to them. So even if Castiel’s superiors are able to work out where you are, they can’t just walk in and take you.”  
  
“So... I-I really... am safe?”  
  
Henry squeezed the back of John’s neck. “You really are.”  
  
“I can’t... it’s been too long....”  
  
“Try, son. For the boys’ sake.”  
  
John drew a deep breath. “For the boys.”  
  
Henry gently but firmly steered him to the table, where Bobby put a loaded plate in front of him. And slowly, hesitantly, John began to eat… and relax.


	6. 2012-2016 -- How it Went Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is in place now. So what happens when Gloucester Island reappears?

  


Chapter 5

  
That was the beginning. For all his deeply engrained paranoia and trauma from Hell and from life before that, John did make an effort to reconcile with both Henry and Bobby and to help as much as he could with the search for a solution to the problem of Gloucester Island. But the ongoing Apocalypse threat didn’t help matters.  
  
Still, he tried. He tried. He often failed, but he did try.  
  
Lilith did eventually rise—but only after Castiel had become convinced that his superiors were lying and joined the new version of the Men of Letters... and brought a certain Trickster along with him. Then it was a race to get the seals to stop breaking—a race they ended up losing.  
  
But an even weirder thing started happening after Lucifer rose in 2014. Bobby started getting calls from people who swore blind that they’d seen Sam and Dean around the country... nowhere near Massachusetts.  
  
John threw the phone down on the table. “You said they were on Gloucester!”  
  
“They _were_ ,” Bobby said. “We should check it out to be sure, but I got a hunch those ain’t really our boys.”  
  
“Who else could they be?” John snarled, hands waving helplessly.  
  
“Shifters?” Henry suggested. “Ghouls? Angel-created doppelgangers?”  
  
“Hell, ’bout the only thing they _cain’t_ be is aliens,” Bobby agreed.  
  
“Who?” the Trickster asked as he came into the room with Cas at his side. “I can make you some if you want....”  
  
Henry laughed, but Bobby rolled his eyes and explained the report.  
  
Cas looked over at the Trickster. “They’re trying to force John into the open.”  
  
The Trickster nodded, all business now. “Whether it’s Heaven or Hell doing it, I can’t tell at the moment, but it would make sense for it to be one of the two. Go check it out.”  
  
Cas nodded and disappeared. A few minutes later, he returned. “Demons disguised by a glamour,” he reported. “I dispatched them. The glamour was well done, though.” He handed his phone to Bobby, showing a picture he’d managed to take of the fakes.  
  
Bobby studied the image and nodded. “Good guess at what they’d look like now.”  
  
“But... that’s not what they’ll look like, right?” John asked hopefully. “They’ll look... like what I remember?”  
  
“As far as we know,” Henry answered. “The reports of people leaving the island after staying overnight all indicate that they weren’t even aware that they’d missed time, never mind having aged at all.”  
  
Bobby zoomed in on something in the picture, but he didn’t show anyone what he was looking for or say anything before handing the phone back to Cas.  
  
Cas looked at him, asking with his eyes what it was he was looking for.  
  
Bobby only rubbed his right wrist and changed the subject.  
  
Cas looked at the picture and frowned. There was nothing wrong with the fake Samuel’s wrist. It was whole and perfect. But from the look and image he’d inadvertently leaked through to Cas, it was clear that there was something not right with the real Sam’s wrist.  
  
Cas would keep that detail silent, though. It was clear Bobby wanted it quiet.  
  


* * *

  
There were more incidents of the same kind over the next year-and-change. Some of the doubles were the right age but looked _exactly_ like the boys had the day John had died, down to the scrapes and cuts from the wreck that had healed before they’d gone to Gloucester. Some had beards or hair that was too long or too short. Some looked exactly right except for that one detail that Bobby never would clarify for Cas (but at some point must have whispered to Henry). But none turned out to be the real Winchester boys when Cas investigated.  
  
The condition of the outside world and of John’s psyche continued to deteriorate, but Bobby and Henry, backed up by the Trickster, refused to give up on the return of Gloucester Island. And all too soon—yet not soon enough, by some measures—it was September of 2016 and time to leave for Boston. Cas and the Trickster insisted on coming with Henry and Bobby, as did John. But as a precaution before they left, the Trickster, with a snap of his fingers, carved sigils into the humans’ ribs to hide them from Heaven and Hell alike.  
  
They arrived in the town of Gloucester on the evening of September 14 and checked into a motel—and a knock sounded on their door not five minutes later.  
  
After exchanging startled looks with everyone, Bobby drew his sidearm and opened the door to reveal a man who looked shockingly like Brian Keith in early 1800s garb, taking off a three-cornered hat in deference.  
  
“Pardon the interruption, sir,” he said hoarsely. “Are you Mr. Bobby Singer?”  
  
“Who’s askin’?” he replied.  
  
“My name’s Linfield Mattocks, sir. I’m the magistrate for Gloucester Island.”  
  
John spoke up. “So it’s back, then?”  
  
Henry frowned. “It shouldn’t be....”  
  
Mattocks ignored them both. “There’s an emergency on the island. Mr. Dean Winchester sent us with this to ask you to come out right away.” And he handed Bobby a folded piece of crisp, cream-colored laid paper, much thicker than normal modern writing paper.  
  
“Us?” Bobby echoed, accepting the paper. “Who’s us?”  
  
It was only then that the tall, lanky blond standing next to Bobby’s van stepped forward to join Mattocks. “Good evening,” he said in a deep voice with a Russian accent. “I am Alexei Kolchin. It was I who helped Sam to get signal to call you.”  
  
Bobby took a deep breath. “From the sub in the ’60s,” he breathed and opened the note.  
  
 _Hey, Bobby_ , it read in Dean’s handwriting. _Sorry I don’t have that poster for you, but things got kinda messed up tonight. Sam tells me Whittaker couldn’t hold off the leap until dawn this time. I hope like hell you’ve found something by now—we think the spell’s the only thing keeping Whittaker alive at this point. Even if you haven’t, we need you... if only so you can get Sammy to stop trying to scratch under his cast.  
Dean  
P. S. I hate writing with this stupid quill pen._  
  
“It’s them,” Bobby breathed. He met Alexei’s eyes. “Let’s go.”  
  


* * *

  
As they stepped off the ferry, John froze and gasped. “Holy sh**, it’s the Impala.”  
  
Two familiar figures were pacing by her front bumper, along with a blonde who was hugging a sweater around herself as protection against the cool, damp sea breeze. “They’re here,” said the girl, visibly relieved.  
  
The boys spun, hope mixed with anxiety on their faces... but that vanished as their eyes widened and jaws dropped, followed by a chorus of, “DAD?!”  
  
“Are you sure, Bobby?” John asked. They’d been fooled and fooled and fooled.  
  
Bobby saw Sam cradling his arm. “I’m sure. This is them. For real.”  
  
John swallowed hard and nodded. “Boys.”  
  
Sam looked at Bobby. “How....”  
  
“Long story short, angels brought ’im back,” said Bobby. “But he’s clean. It’s really him.”  
  
Seconds later, John had his arms full of two sobbing sons.  
  
A second after that, Sam pulled back whimpering slightly as his arm was jarred.  
  
“Alison?” Dean called over his shoulder. “Could you....”  
  
“Tylenol in the glovebox?” the blonde called back.  
  
“Right. And some water.”  
  
“Got it.” Alison opened the front passenger door and ducked into the car.  
  
“What happened?” John asked.  
  
“Zombie,” Dean answered before Sam could. “Threw Sammy into a gravestone before we could nail her back in her coffin.”  
  
Sam swallowed the pills and drank the water, and John looked over at Bobby. “And you knew—this was the detail everyone got wrong. Sam’s broken arm.”  
  
Dean frowned. “Everyone got wrong?” he repeated. “There’s been people out there trying to make you think they’re us? Why?”  
  
“Perhaps we should have this conversation inside,” Henry suggested. “It’s getting colder by the minute, and you did say Whittaker’s state was an emergency.”  
  
“This way.” As they followed Dean, Sam put the newcomers between them and addressed their backs. “He’s from the War of 1812. Yes, for real. He’s the one who cast the spell and now he’s... well, he’s suffering.”  
  
“He’s been unconscious since the jump,” Dean added. “Think it’s been a couple of hours, but it’s hard to be sure of anything here.”  
  
The entire story came out as they walked through the town and up the stairs where Whittaker lay. But it wasn’t until Bobby was introducing everyone to Rozanov, who’d kept anxious watch over Whittaker while the Winchesters and Kolchins were gone, that the boys first learned the names and identities of the newcomers they hadn’t met before.  
  
Dean’s eyebrows rose. “Those don’t sound like human names.”  
  
“We’re not,” said the Trickster shortly, then amended while pointing a thumb at Henry, “Well, he is. He’s your grandpa. C’mon, Castiel, let’s see what we can see.” And he pushed Cas toward Whittaker’s bed.  
  
Cas approached the bed and they watched as his fingers stroked the unconscious man’s hand and then across his forehead. He looked up at the Trickster and his lips thinned.  
  
“What is verdict, please?” Rozanov asked, visibly worried.  
  
“Sam was correct,” Cas said softly. “He is suffering.”  
  
“It’s worse now, isn’t it?” the Trickster surmised. “Not just because of the duration... because of the Apocalypse mess.”  
  
“The what?” Dean blurted.  
  
“Dad, what did we miss?” Sam breathed.  
  
John sighed. “It’s true. Lucifer’s out of his Cage, and he’s looking for his true vessel. So is Michael. If they find them... well... they’ll fight to the death, and regardless of who wins, the world ends.”  
  
The next question, for John, erased any doubt that these were his boys. In perfect unison they asked:  
  
“So how do we stop it?”  
  
“We don’t know if we can,” Henry admitted quietly, “especially right now.”  
  
“Our more pressing problem,” Bobby said, “is stopping this and getting you off the island.”  
  
“We have an idea about that,” said Sam. “At least, Yuri and Alexei do.”  
  
“Is like our submarine,” Rozanov said.  
  
“We ran aground,” Alexei explained. “Our captain sent us to get motorboat to tow the submarine back to deeper water. We think we do the same for Whittaker.”  
  
Sam nodded. “He said the spell’s being fueled by his soul, so it seems like the only way to break the loop is to break the connection between his soul and the island.”  
  
Dean hummed thoughtfully. “So what the hell is the motorboat in this equation?”  
  
“That is where we were hoping you could aid?” Rozano said, spreading his hands.  
  
Bobby and John both looked at Henry, who blew the air out of his cheeks. “I—I don’t know. We don’t just have the spell to deal with; we’ve got the latent natural magic of the island. And even without that, we were taught the only thing more powerful than a soul is... is....” He trailed off, looking at Cas and the Trickster.  
  
They spoke in unison, in whispers. “Angels.”  
  
Sam swallowed hard and walked over to Cas. “Can you? Can you break the spell?”  
  
Cas shook his head. “No. No one can. It may be possible to shift it from Mr. Whittaker’s soul to another, but I don’t have the skill. And I can’t afford to take it on myself—my garrison is charged with stopping the Apocalypse.”  
  
Dean was unusually quiet for a minute, but then he raised his head and asked, “What if we solved both problems at once?”  
  
Bobby frowned. “How do you mean?”  
  
He pointed at Cas. “You said that Michael and Lucifer want to duel to the death.” He pointed at the ground. “Bring them here. Let us have the rest of the day to evacuate the island. Then use the spell and lock them away to have their battle so they won’t hurt anybody.”  
  
Cas shook his head. “Dean, you don’t understand. The vessels they’re looking for are _you and Sam_.”  
  
Dean grinned his father’s smile. “Good thing we’re here, then, isn’t it?”  
  
Sam’s eyes widened. “Bait?”  
  
Bobby looked like thunder. “Do you have any idea what you’re talkin’ about, y’idjit? Those archangels want to _possess_ you and use you to kill each other!”  
  
“We have to evacuate the island before we can even _think_ about attempting that plan,” Henry insisted. “But I’m sure Bobby and I aren’t the only ones who don’t want you risking your own lives for this. Right, John? ... John?!”  
  
“Where is he?” Rozanov asked.  
  
Everyone looked around the room, but John had vanished.  
  
“Loki, can you find him?” Bobby asked, knowing from experience that the Trickster could often do things Cas couldn’t.  
  
The Trickster shook his head. “Not with those sigils on his ribs. He’s completely hidden.”  
  
Sam groaned. “I’ve got a horrible feeling he’s gone to do something downright stupid.”  
  
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Bobby. “May not be time to stop ’im, either.”  
  
Dean ran a hand over his nose and mouth. “So we... wait?”  
  
As if on cue, the door creaked open and John walked into the bedroom. At least... it looked like John. But his spine was even straighter than usual, and his gait was stiff, as if he weren’t used to walking.  
  
Cas and the Trickster gasped with one voice. “Michael....”  
  
“Castiel,” said John’s voice with a strangely different quality to it. “Gabriel. I am glad to see you well.”  
  
Bobby’s head snapped to the Trickster. “ _Gabriel?_ ” he gasped.  
  
“ _That_ doesn’t leave this room,” the Tr—Gabriel ordered before returning his attention to the other archangel in the room. “Mike, you’ve got to call this off. Millions of humans could die, and we need your help here.”  
  
“I am a good son. I obey my father. This is His will, and shall be done.” He frowned suddenly. “You need my help?”  
  
“This island is trapped in a temporal shift spell being fueled by Whittaker’s soul over there. Any human who sets foot on it risks being trapped as well. The spell’s unbreakable, but if we can shift it from Whittaker to an angel....”  
  
Michael looked over at Whittaker. “He will die.”  
  
There was a wry chuckle from the bed at that. Everyone turned to see Whittaker slowly forcing his eyes open. “I’d rather die,” he croaked. “That’s better than being trapped in a living hell like this.”  
  
“We need time to get everyone to the mainland,” said Dean.  
  
“I’m not going,” said Mattocks.  
  
“Sir,” said Bobby, “with respect, as hard as it might be to adjust to modern life, that’s better than bein’ stuck here unable to die.”  
  
Mattocks shook his head. “Respect understood, lad. But this is my choice.” He turned to Michael. “Evacuate the island.”  
  
“This is not my concern,” said Michael. “My only concern is stopping Lucifer. The fate of this island is insignificant in light of what I am about to do.”  
  
Dean leaned forward. “What if you could use this island to do it? To stop him?”  
  
Michael frowned. “The final battle is to occur in Stull Cemetery. That was ordained long ago. I cannot change it.”  
  
“Sure you can,” Dean broke into a broad grin. “It’s already been changed once. It was supposed to be Armageddon Plain, wasn’t it? Then suddenly it’s Stull. Who really cares where it is, long as you two get your match?”  
  
Sam looked at Dean oddly. “Since when did you pay attention to Pastor Jim’s sermons on Revelation?”  
  
“Since Maura Reynolds was the acolyte. She had these eyes that were so blue they—” Dean cleared his throat. “Anyway.”  
  
“I have already taken too many liberties by agreeing to your father’s terms,” Michael insisted. “The battle will take place at Stull.”  
  
Sam sighed and caught Dean’s eyes before he said, “You’re wasting your time, Dean. He’s so committed to being Daddy’s Blunt Little Instrument that he’s too much of a coward to ever think for himself.”  
  
Dean bristled, but Gabriel said, “You’re wrong, Mike. We got a gate crasher.”  
  
“Explain,” Michael snarled.  
  
“Lucifer’s outside.”  
  
“He’s here—on the island?”  
  
“Walking in the front door as we speak.”  
  
Dean caught Cas’s arm. “Get this island evacuated _now_.”  
  
Cas looked at him wild-eyed. “I can’t—”  
  
Gabriel snapped his fingers, and suddenly the Winchesters, Bobby, Rozanov, the Kolchins, Mattocks, and everyone else on the island were standing around the Impala on the dock on the mainland.  
  
Bobby looked around. “Cas! Loki!”  
  
Cas appeared beside him a moment later, and Gabriel a moment after that, wiping his forehead as a cut on his wrist flashed blue and disappeared.  
  
“It’s done,” said Gabriel.  
  
“What’s—” Dean began, but Sam grabbed his wrist and gasped, “Look!”  
  
The island in the distance flickered once—and was gone.  
  
The stunned silence was broken by two pained groans. Sam and Dean turned to find John leaning against the Impala—with Whittaker in his arms.  
  
“Dad?” Sam took a step forward, only for Dean to grab his arm.  
  
“Sammy, no... it might be Michael.”  
  
The matter was settled when John shot a pained glare at Gabriel. “Dammit, Loki... now Michael’s coming after my boys!”  
  
“ _If_ he ever gets away from the island,” Gabriel returned. “But he won’t. Not only is the spell on the island tied to his grace now, but Lucifer’s there, and Mike’s too fixated on killing Luci to even think about leaving while Luci’s alive.”  
  
“When the island reappears, we’ll have to deal with this all over again, won’t we?” Dean asked.  
  
“That’s the thing. It won’t—at least not in your lifetime. If it reappears at all, it’ll be in at least a hundred years, maybe a thousand.”  
  
“It’s ... over?” Castiel breathed, visibly awed. “The entire.... The entire mess is finished?”  
  
Gabriel wrapped his arm around Castiel’s shoulders. “As much as it ever could be. And we owe it all to Walt here.”  
  
Whittaker, against all odds, still breathed.  
  
Rozanov went over to him and asked him something in Yiddish. Whittaker gasped a reply in the same language, then continued in English, “At least... I got... to taste freedom... one... last... time.”  
  
And then he was gone.  
  
Rozanov gently closed his eyes and rested a hand on his cheek, murmuring a Hebrew prayer, then stood and turned to his former crewmate. “We are free.”  
  
“We are free,” Alexei agreed, holding Alison in a tight side hug. Then he looked at Gabriel and nodded toward Mattocks, who looked close to tears. “But what about all these people?”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Gabriel. “I’ve got a plan for them, too.”  
  


* * *

  
Two weeks later, the Boston media was inundated with announcements of a new living history museum on the grounds of an abandoned plantation that had been in litigation to prevent its being turned into a housing development by a notoriously unscrupulous developer. _Come see what life was like during the War of 1812_ , the ads proclaimed.  
  
“It’s perfect,” Gabriel explained as he took Mattocks on a tour of the replica of Gloucester Village that he’d put in place of the ruined plantation house. “You don’t have to worry about adjusting to a modern way of life but can still earn a living from the tourist trade, and historians will either learn something from visiting here and talking to people or fight amongst themselves about why you’re disproving their pet theories about the ways things were done. Win-win!”  
  
Mattocks took Gabriel’s hand in both of his. “How can we ever repay you for this? For everything?”  
  
One whiskey-colored eye closed in a wink. “Don’t worry,” he grinned. “I’ll think of something.”  
  
Several of the Russian sailors, still terrified of being found by either the Feds or the KGB, opted to stay with the families who’d hired them to help work their farms. Adjusting to early 19th-century American life was easier for them than adjusting to early 21st-century life of any sort. But Rozanov and the Kolchins, having more knowledge of the supernatural than the others and wanting to honor Whittaker’s legacy, decided to join the Letters and move to Lebanon with the Winchesters.  
  
Well, all but one Winchester. Having mended fences with Ellen in the years since his return, John realized with a start one morning that he’d fallen in love with her, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. It took some time for Dean to warm up to the idea, but once he did, John proposed, and Ellen accepted. And it wasn’t long before the Winchesters and all their friends found themselves gathered at the Roadhouse for John and Ellen’s wedding.  
  
Many a speech and toast was made that day, amid gales of laughter and storms of tears. But perhaps the best toast of them all was when Alexei got up, tried to think of something to say, blushed, raised his glass, and blurted out, “To a long life of peaceful co-existence!”  
  
“ _Za zdorovie!_ ” Rozanov cried.  
  
“ _Za zdorovie!_ ” everyone else echoed, laughing, and drank.

END


End file.
